Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Sensitivities of soil respiration and heterotrophic respiration to temperature in a cool-temperate forest with sika deer-induced understory vegetation alteration
Published: 2024-08-05
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Monitoring, Forest Biology, Forest Management, Soil Science, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Overpopulated ungulates reduce the biomass of understory vegetation and promote the expansion of unpalatable plants in world forests. These understory degradations possibly influence sensitivities of soil respiration (Rs) and heterotrophic respiration (Rh) to temperature and moisture. Here, we examined this possibility in a cool-temperate forest in southern Kyushu, Japan. At the study site, the [...]
A scalable monitoring framework for leaf area index and green area index using 30°-tilted cameras
Published: 2024-07-01
Subjects: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
• Leaf area index (LAI) and green area index (GAI) are fundamental plant traits. However, there is a lack of ground observation network for LAI/GAI due to technical limitations. Here we present a new method to achieve continuous LAI/GAI monitoring using ordinary cameras. • By tilting ordinary cameras by 30°, images can cover a large view zenith angle range to measure multi-angular gap fractions [...]
Spatial analysis of an elephant mass mortality event: investigating the role of cyanobacteria blooms in the Okavango's waterholes
Published: 2024-05-07
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
The 2020 mass mortality of 350 African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in the Okavango Delta, Botswana sparked global concern. These deaths have been tentatively linked to cyanotoxins in watering holes (pans), but evidence remains inconclusive. In this study, we used remote sensing in combination with spatial analysis to explore the relationship between the ecohydrology of ~3,000 pans and the [...]
The potential of terrestrial and aquatic molluscs for the temporal analysis of Deckenschotter deposits and younger Quaternary sediments from the Swiss Plateau
Published: 2024-05-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Soil Science, Stratigraphy, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Can multi-scale thermal infrared imaging help validate and monitor water stress in alluvial forests?
Published: 2024-04-13
Subjects: Geomorphology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Alluvial forests are fragile and sensitive to drought induced by climate change and exacerbated by altered flow regimes. Our ability to detect and map their sensitivity to drought is therefore crucial to evaluate the effects of climate change and adjust management practices. In such a context, we explore the potential of multi-scale thermal infrared imagery (TIR) to diagnose the sensitivity of [...]
Bad science and good intentions prevent effective climate action
Published: 2024-02-16
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Although the 2015 Paris Agreement climate targets seem certain to be missed, only a few experts are questioning the adequacy of the current approach to limiting climate change and suggesting that additional approaches are needed to avoid unacceptable catastrophes. This article posits that selective science communication and unrealistically optimistic assumptions are obscuring the reality that [...]
The Rapa Nui Little Ice Age drought: evidence, potential causes and socioecological impact
Published: 2024-01-11
Subjects: Paleontology, Sedimentology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
A decade ago, an island-wide drought was proposed to have occurred on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) during the Little Ice Age (LIA). This climatic event was considered to be important for ecological and cultural transformations that occurred on the island during the 16th and 17th centuries. Independent multiproxy paleoecological and paleoclimatic evidence produced in the last years supports the [...]
Open-source approach for reproducible substrate mapping using semantic segmentation on recreation-grade side scan sonar datasets
Published: 2023-12-21
Subjects: Analysis, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Databases and Information Systems, Environmental Monitoring, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Numerical Analysis and Computation, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Programming Languages and Compilers, Software Engineering, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Water Resource Management
Knowledge of the variation and distribution of substrates at large spatial extents in aquatic systems, particularly rivers, is severely lacking, impeding species conservation and ecosystem restoration efforts. Air and space-borne remote sensing important for terrestrial and atmospheric measurements are limited in benthic environments due to river stage, turbidity, and canopy cover, requiring [...]
Comment on Hodgkins et al. (2018)
Published: 2023-12-07
Subjects: Biochemistry, Other Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Hodgkins et al. (2018) used mid infrared spectra (MIRS) to make inferences about the stability of peat against decomposition along a latitudinal gradient from the tropics to northern latitudes. Recently, we have shown that these spectral prediction models are biased and their predictions more uncertain than considered in Hodgkins et al. (2018) (Teickner and Knorr (2022)). Here, we show what [...]
Plastics aplenty in paddy lands: incidence of microplastics in two rice cultivars of Kerala, India, and its impact on primary producers found in paddy fields
Published: 2023-11-14
Subjects: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Toxicology
Microplastics (MP) have received worldwide attention in recent years because of its prevalence in key ecosystems, including agroecosystems. Occurrence of MP in native paddy fields, which are critical to world’s food security, is not reported till date. This study reports the abundance of MP in two different rice cultivars, one of which is the ‘Pokkali’ crop that is Geographical Indication tagged [...]
Wildfire smoke impacts lake ecosystems
Published: 2023-11-06
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Wildfire activity is increasing globally. The resulting smoke plumes can travel hundreds to thousands of kilometers, reflecting or scattering sunlight and depositing ash within ecosystems. Several key physical, chemical, and biological processes in lakes are controlled by factors affected by smoke. The spatial and temporal scales of lake exposure to smoke are extensive and underrecognized. We [...]
Clarifying the trophic state concept to advance freshwater science, management, and interdisciplinary collaboration across spatial and temporal scales
Published: 2023-10-03
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
For over a century, ecologists have used the concept of trophic state (TS) to characterize an aquatic ecosystem’s biological productivity. Because measuring productivity can be challenging within an ecosystem and across landscapes, multiple TS classification schemes, each relying on a variety of proxies for productivity, have emerged to meet use-specific needs. Most commonly, chlorophyll a, [...]
Chapter 4. Bacterial and archaeal DNA from lake sediments
Published: 2023-09-22
Subjects: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
General microbial patterns of biogeography can be established based on sedimentary DNA (sedDNA) retrieved from diverse inland aquatic ecosystems, provided that certain variable environmental factors are taken into consideration in order to trace the admixture of prokaryotic sedDNA preserved in lacustrine sediments from source to sink. These include several watershed characteristics, such as [...]
National-scale, remotely sensed lake trophic state, 1984-2020
Published: 2023-05-10
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Lake trophic state is a key ecosystem property that integrates a lake’s physical, chemical, and biological processes. Despite the importance of trophic state as a gauge of lake water quality, standardized and machine-readable observations are uncommon. Remote sensing presents an opportunity to detect and analyze lake trophic state with reproducible, robust methods across time and space. We used [...]
The unknown fate of macroplastic in mountain rivers
Published: 2022-11-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, Sustainability, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Water Resource Management
Mountain rivers are typically seen as relatively pristine ecosystems, supporting numerous goods (e.g., water resources) for human populations living not only in the mountain regions but also downstream from them. Recent evidence suggests, however, that mountain river valleys in populated areas can be substantially polluted by macroplastic (plastic item > 5 mm). It is, however, unknown how [...]