Preprints

Filtering by Subject: Biodiversity

Accuracy of UAV mapping of Natura 2000 forest, wetland and grassland habitats: Do we need more seasons or more spectral bands?

Petra Šímová, Jiří Prošek, Petr Klápště, et al.

Published: 2023-09-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences

Mapping and monitoring of Natura 2000 habitats (Habitat Directive 92/43/EEC) is one of the key activities to ensure the protection of natural habitats in Europe. Remote sensing can help to acquire high-quality maps of the distribution and conservation status of Natura 2000 habitats, for example through classifying multispectral data. However, due to the high number of habitats (classes) [...]

Sustainable irrigation reduces arsenic bioavailability in fluvio-alluvial soils promoting microbial responses, high rice productivity and economic profit

Arnab Majumdar, Munish Kumar Upadhyay, Biswajit Giri, et al.

Published: 2023-07-26
Subjects: Agricultural Science, Agriculture, Agronomy and Crop Sciences Life Sciences, Biodiversity, Environmental Studies, Microbiology

Minimizing arsenic (74.92As33) loading into rice plants, we suggest adopting alternating wetting and drying (AWD) irrigation as a sustainable water management strategy allowing greater silicon (28.08Si14) availability. This two-year field-based project is the first report on AWD's impact on As-Si distribution in fluvio-alluvial soils of the entire Ganga valley (24 study sites divided into six [...]

MIND THE UNCERTAINTY: GLOBAL PLATE MODEL CHOICE IMPACTS DEEP-TIME PALAEOBIOLOGICAL STUDIES

Lucas Buffan, Lewis Alan Jones, Mathew Domeier, et al.

Published: 2023-06-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Climate, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Geology, Life Sciences, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure

1. Global Plate Models (GPMs) aim to reconstruct the tectonic evolution of the Earth by modelling the motion of the plates and continents through time. These models enable palaeobiologists to study the past distribution of extinct organisms. However, different GPMs exist that vary in their partitioning of the Earth’s surface and the modelling of continental motions. Consequently, the preferred [...]

Ecological Flows in Southern Europe: status and trends in non-perennial rivers

Marianna Leone, Francesco Gentile, Antonio Lo Porto, et al.

Published: 2023-05-16
Subjects: Biodiversity, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Studies, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Sustainability, Water Resource Management

The concept of environmental flows (E-Flows) describes the streamflow that is necessary to maintain river ecosystems. Although a large number of methods have been developed, a delay was recorded in implementing E–Flows in non-perennial rivers. The general aim of the paper was to analyse the criticalities and the current state of implementation of the E-Flows in non-perennial rivers of southern [...]

Understanding and Assessing Demographic (In)Equity Resulting from Extreme Heat Exposure due to Lack of Tree Canopies in Norfolk, VA using Agent-Based Modeling

Virginia Zamponi, Kevin Obrien, Erik Jensen, et al.

Published: 2023-03-31
Subjects: Biodiversity, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies, Human Geography, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Statistics and Probability

Prolonged exposure to extreme heat can result in illness and death. In urban areas of dense concentrations of pavement, buildings, and other surfaces that absorb and retain heat, extreme heat conditions can arise regularly and create harmful environmental exposures for residents daily during certain parts of the year. Tree canopies provide shade and help to cool the environment, making mature [...]

Towards robust interdisciplinary modeling of global human-environmental dynamics

Carsten Meyer

Published: 2023-02-20
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Forest Sciences, Geography, Life Sciences, Nature and Society Relations

Real-world environmental problems are typically vast, urgent, and complex. Confronted with such problems, we are often tempted to act fast by pulling together little bits and pieces from different fields and simply adding these to pre-existing models and frameworks. Seldom, though, do we pause long enough to look whether and for how long those larger structures we build can support reliable [...]

A multi-spatial analysis and the balanced requirements of freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Unionidae) and urban inhabitants in the Cuyahoga River watershed

Robert A Krebs, Tamar A. Atwell, Rachel E. Andrikanich, et al.

Published: 2023-02-10
Subjects: Biodiversity

Water quality in the Cuyahoga River, a national heritage river of the United States, has improved greatly since the infamous river fire of 1969, but much of the watershed faces combined demands of a state scenic river valued for nature and the primary water source for surrounding cities. A comparative analysis of mussel abundance was applied to test success between water improvements and mussel [...]

Environmental DNA (eDNA) based fish biodiversity assessment of two Himalayan rivers of Nepal reveals diversity differences and highlights new species distribution records

Dibesh Bikram Karmacharya, Prajwol Manandhar, Sulochana Manandhar, et al.

Published: 2023-02-03
Subjects: Biodiversity

Although over 180 freshwater fish species have been reported from Nepal, little is known of their ecology and distribution. This information is needed because their diversity may be threatened by developments like hydropower constructions. We conducted Nepal’s first environmental DNA (eDNA) based fish biodiversity assessment in two major river systems- Karnali River (KR), which is still [...]

Small artificial impoundments have big implications for hydrology and freshwater biodiversity

Robert Morden, Avril Horne, Nicholas Bond, et al.

Published: 2021-12-07
Subjects: Biodiversity, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Headwater streams are critical for freshwater ecosystems. Global and continental studies consistently show major dams as dominant sources of hydrological stress threatening biodiversity in the world’s major rivers, but cumulative impacts from small artificial impoundments concentrated in headwater streams have rarely been acknowledged. Using the Murray Darling River basin (Australia) and the [...]

The challenge of setting ‘climate ready’ ecological targets for environmental flow planning

Meegan Judd, Nicholas Bond, Avril Horne

Published: 2021-12-07
Subjects: Biodiversity, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Life Sciences

Implementing environmental flows has emerged as a major restoration tool for addressing the impacts of hydrologic alteration in large river systems. The ‘natural flow paradigm’ has been a central guiding principle for determining important ecohydrological relationships. Yet, climate change and associated changes in rainfall run off relationships, seasonality of flows, disruptions to food webs and [...]

What’s obstructing climate change adaptation in environmental water management?

Meegan Judd, Martina Boese, Avril Horne, et al.

Published: 2021-12-07
Subjects: Biodiversity, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Life Sciences

Climate change is irreversibly changing the water cycle, yet existing environmental flow assessment methods often fail to recognise the non stationarity of hydro climatic systems. Failure to do so will lead to the inability of environmental water management to achieve its restoration targets. Australia has undergone major reform over the past twelve years to recover water from consumptive use for [...]

Airborne laser scanning proxies of canopy light transmission in forests

Adam Michael Erickson, Nicholas Coops

Published: 2021-10-29
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biogeochemistry, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Plant Sciences, Software Engineering, Statistics and Probability

Reliable estimates of canopy light transmission are critical to understanding the structure and function of vegetation communities but are difficult and costly to attain by traditional field inventory methods. Airborne laser scanning (ALS) data uniquely provide multi-angular vertically resolved representation of canopy geometry across large geographic areas. While previous studies have proposed [...]

Bridging knowledge gaps with hybrid machine-learning forest ecosystem models (ML-FEMs): inferential simulation of past understory light regimes

Adam Michael Erickson, Craig Nistchke

Published: 2021-10-29
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biodiversity, Biogeochemistry, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Plant Sciences

Soil moisture is a key limiting factor of plant productivity in boreal and montane regions, producing additional climate feedbacks through evaporation, regeneration, mortality, and respiration. Understory solar irradiation – the primary driver of surface temperature and evaporative demand – remains poorly represented in vegetation models due to a lack of 3-D canopy geometry. Existing models are [...]

Simulated decline of a northern forest due to anthropogenic controls on the regeneration-mortality balance

Adam Michael Erickson, Craig Nistchke, Gordon Stenhouse

Published: 2021-10-29
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Plant Sciences

The population structure of forests is shaped by balancing the opposing forces of regeneration and mortality, each of which influence C turnover rates and are sensitive to climate. Regeneration underlies the migrational potential of forests to climatic change and remains underserved in modeling studies. Our objective was to test the hypothesis that warming may reduce tree regeneration rates while [...]

Tidal marsh resilience to sea level rise controlled by vertical accretion and landward migration under nature-based human adaptation scenarios

Xiaoguang Ouyang, Rod Connolly, Shing Yip Lee

Published: 2021-10-15
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Geography, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Plant Sciences

Tidal marshes are not only lost to human disturbance but also face the threat of sea level rise (SLR). However, current earth system models used to estimate future changes in wetland extent omit wetland’s real responses to SLR without field observations. We synthesised global data on sediment accretion rate (SAR) and surface elevation change (SEC) for tidal marshes and developed a mathematical [...]

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