Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
AI-Driven Decision-Making for Water Resources Planning and Hazard Mitigation Using Automated Multi Agents
Published: 2024-12-27
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Computational Engineering, Computer and Systems Architecture, Computer Engineering, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Education, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, Higher Education, Hydraulic Engineering, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Risk Analysis, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Systems Engineering, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Transportation Engineering
This project simulates the Multi-Hazard Tournament (MHT) framework, a decision support system designed for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, using AI agents to enhance decisionmaking processes for flood mitigation and water resource management. The objective of the framework is to develop optimal strategies for protecting water resources, habitats, and communities within a defined budget. The [...]
Quantifying the benefits of nature-based solutions in urban drainage on headwater stream water quality
Published: 2024-12-21
Subjects: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
In urban areas lacking adequate sanitation infrastructure, greywater flows into nearby urban streams through the stormwater drainage network. This study evaluates the impact of this drainage on water quality in a headwater stream in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires (AMBA), Argentina. We analysed and model pollutant loads — organic matter, nutrients, and allochthonous faecal bacteria — [...]
Potential impacts of plant pests and diseases on trees and forests in the UK
Published: 2024-12-13
Subjects: Forest Biology, Forest Management, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Plant pests and diseases (PPDs) pose a serious threat to trees and forests globally. In the wake of the ash dieback epidemic, the UK Government instigated the UK Plant Health Risk Register (PHRR) to provide semi-quantitative estimates of invasion probability and impact on host plants for PPDs thought to pose a risk to the UK to help prioritize biosecurity activities. The PHRR currently contains [...]
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 [...]
Remote sensing and spatial analysis reveal unprecedented cyanobacteria bloom dynamics associated with elephant mass mortality
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 Botswana sparked global concern, with cyanotoxins in watering holes (pans) being a suspected cause, though evidence remains inconclusive. Combining remote sensing and spatial analysis, we examined the relationship between the ecohydrology of ~3,000 pans and the locations of deceased elephants. Our analysis revealed a [...]
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: 2024-02-17
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: 2024-01-12
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, [...]