evo-bio-blog

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QnA time

This week’s post will be giving greater context and answering questions about previous topics! Apologies for the missed upload last week but enjoy this week’s slightly longer post.

 Are other types of human-induced environmental change potentially as concerning from an evolutionary perspective as climate change?

All human-induced environmental change can be concerning with regard to the potential for humans to irreparably ‘throw off’ the delicate balance of an ecosystem. However due to the sheer amount of pushback against the concept of climate change, both by the general public, and more so businesses and governmental agencies, climate change is likely to accelerate and do far more harm before we are able to help begin to fix these problems. This means that evolutionary-wise, the flora and fauna under threat will likely sustain serious damage in larger numbers than through other means of human-induced environmental change, such as hunting or urban development.

 Would you predict insects to see as large an effect from climate change as large mammals?

This is hard to predict, but as you know, insects have an extremely wide net of plants and animals that rely on them for pollination, as prey, pest control etc. For example, it would be entirely possible for the flow-on effects of a large loss of numbers in an insect species such as bees to supersede the effects of say a loss in the number of a large predator in a specific area. The answer to this question really depends on the impacts, species and scale specified.  This journal article will provide some more context as to how the insect population in Germany is declining and the effects of that.

  (In regard to the ocean changes infographic) Do all of these different effects ultimately feedback on each other, causing knock-on or cumulative effects?

Yes, the temperature changes, ocean acidification, circulation, sea level rise and increase in cyclones all do interplay with each other. For example, ocean temperature increase effects circulation changes, which both also affect the strength, frequency, and location of cyclones.

 (In regard to humans 1 post) Is climate change also impacting the occurrence of other disasters, such as volcanoes?

This is a good question. Coming at it again from the human perspective, the poorer and more disadvantaged people, as well as those already displaced from previous climatic events will be incredibly vulnerable to volcanic events, but as to the frequency and occurrence of those events, I haven’t been able to find a conclusive link to any increase/decrease in frequency or severity of these volcanic events. It is possible that they will be affected, due to the incredibly complex interplay of the systems that rule our planet, however, this is an area of minimal research at the moment.

  What kind of effect is changing climate have on rainfall and weather patterns in particular areas, specifically Africa and Europe?

Rainfall patterns across Africa impact a large number of things, namely food production, the level of dust in the air and also water quantity, which is one of the most contested resources in the region. The changing climate is causing many regions of Africa to become much drier, and have less rainfall, meaning that many people are faced with increasing hunger due to failing crops, a loss in safety due to water-centric conflicts and also just generally harsher conditions to the increase in dust storms causing damage and decreasing air quality. This journal article goes into greater depth with regard to the dust flow, and this one is good further reading with how the rainfall comes into play with social aspects.  

In Europe, increases in rainfall, as well as swelling temperatures are leading to an increase in many diseases thought to be constrained to the tropical regions of the world. Ticks and the diseases they bring with them such as tick-borne encephalitis is an emerging threat in the region (Gray et al., 2018). The main change to rainfall over Europe is an increase in variability. This unreliable nature of future rainfall leads to changes in growing conditions and yield quantity for many crops and will harm the food stability in many regions (Olesen et al., 2011).

 How is rice currently being threatened by climate change? Is it being affected by increasing drought-like conditions or flooding?

One of the best resources to answer this question is the book Climate change and Rice by Shaobing Peng. In this book Peng states that both the amount and diversity in the global stock of rice have decreased, along with an increase in rice prices. As rice is a staple food for billions of people, this is cause for concern (Wassmann et al., 2009). The effects of drought or flooding depend on the specifics of the region where the rice is grown, but both ought to be considered, along with how to deal with other factors such as increasing salinity and temperature.  

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Plants and climate change

Last week we examined the effects of climate change on human communities in Europe and Africa, this week – how will plants be affected?

Plants are all encompassing on our planet, and are essential for life, but like many other living (and nonliving things) they too will be affected by climatic change. As plants are such an integral part of any ecosystem, any harm/changes that happen to them will have serious flow-on effects.

Plants are farmed by humans for a regular food source, with wheat, corn and rice being major crops. It has already been recorded that rice is under threat from changing temperatures (Peng et al., 2004). The loss/decline of these staple crops will be a huge problem for global food security unless a solution is found.

A very large proportion of organisms also rely on plants, not only for food, but also for shelter, defence and reproductive reasons. Many insects have very close evolutionary relationships such as local bees and Ophrys apifera, the bee orchid, which allows both parties to benefit (Breitkopf et al., 2014). Reptiles, fish, mammals, birds and all other living things rely on plant relationships or on other living things that do, meaning that any changes to the plant status quo will ripple out through the ecosystem and effect things down the line.

 Next week: Answering questions asked about evolutionary biology and climate change! Please feel free to use the askbox to submit or reply with your questions, and I’ll do my best to answer all of them over the next week or two!

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Human focus - Europe, Africa

Last week we examined the effects of climate change on human communities in Australia, the Pacific Islands, Asia, and America. This week – Europe and Africa!

 Many of us have surely heard world governments debating whether to let in the increasing number of asylum seekers. Yet again this is connected to climate change. The combination of resource-scarcity and weather-based conflicts, rising tides, and increasingly inhospitable conditions cause many people to have to leave their homes (Hendrix and Glaser, 2007).

Missirian and Schlenker found that once the temperature of a region deviates from a moderate of 20oC then asylum applications increase. We’re already seeing this play out with increasing numbers of people migrating from the Mediterranean into Europe. Other parts of western Europe, such as the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland display ever-changing extreme weather patterns, going from record-breaking heatwaves to snow.  

The increased range and spread of diseases such as Malaria will affect a large number of people both on the African continent, but also in the middle east and into Europe (Craig, Snow and le Sueur, 1999). Other effects that will severely impact the African continent include changes to crop viability, due to changing weather and climatic conditions. This will likely result in many people not being able to find affordable and accessible food sources for their communities and end up having to migrate.

 Next week: A focus on plants – We’ll go more into depth about crop changes, the shrinking ranges of many plants and how this will affect the animals that feed on them.

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Humans and Climate change: Part 1

Last week we examined the effects of climate change on marine ­­­+ reef communities, this week we’ll examine the effects on us humans! This week – Australia, Pacific islands, Asia and America

We already know about the rising sea levels climate change will cause, thanks to last week but now let’s put it in context. Around 85% of Australians lived within 50km of the coast in 2004 and this is only increasing (Abs.gov.au, 2004). As well as this there are around 2.3 million people living in the pacific islands region (World Bank, 2018).

These coastal and island areas are typically low-lying, flat and flood-prone, meaning that with rising oceans they are under direct threat. Communities located on some smaller islands such as Tuvalu and Kiribati are already under threat, with some people having to evacuate due to increasing inundation. This is not something that will just affect small island communities, it is of concern to every person living close to oceans or rivers on our planet.

Another threat from climate change we’ve already examined is the increase in range, frequency and strength of extreme weather events. We are already seeing this effect as well, with the recent hurricanes Maria and Irma coming out of the hyperactive 2017 hurricane season and devastating Puerto Rico (Ben Westcott and Steve George, 2018). After Maria, the entire country was left without power, some still not returned as well as over $91.61 billion worth of damages (Ben Westcott and Steve George, 2018).

Similar extreme weather events have also been seen in recent record, such as Tropical Cyclone Yasi in far north Queensland, and increasing and dangerous flood events in southern Asia, particularly Bangladesh creating many climate refugees (Glennon, 2018).  

 Next week: We continue exploring the effects of climate change on human communities – Europe, Africa, Russia

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What will happen to the insects?

Last week we spoke to the connection between climate change and evolutionary biology. But how will insects be affected?

The main way in which insects are affected by climate change is through a shift in timing windows. For example, even a temperature increase of 1 or 2 degrees can affect a species’ reaction to seasonal changes (Yale E360, 2018), meaning that their breeding season may become mistimed in such a way that their young are not fully grown and ready come wintertime, leading to the death of them and their parents (Musolin, 2007).

Another example is frequently seen in birds, where their breeding season and their food supply’s blooming season become mismatched. Leading to newborns having no food available, and also affecting pollination.

Insects are also common vectors for many diseases such as dengue and malaria (Githeko et al., 2000). As global temperatures rise, the range of tropical diseases increases as well, allowing these diseases to potentially expand from the tropics, to cover central Europe and the US (Githeko et al., 2000). The severity of the effects of this will vary by the degree of urbanisation of an area, the density of human population, and the health infrastructure of the country (Githeko et al., 2000).

Insects can often be a great indicator of large-scale environmental changes across an area, as they are lower in the food chain, primarily feeding on plants or other small insects, and being eaten by many other things.

Next week: A marine focus – Climate change’s effects on coastal marine systems, particularly, the world’s coral reefs 

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How is it connected?

 Last week we established that climate change will affect every living thing on earth, but how is climate change connected to evolutionary biology?

Earth’s weather and temperature is a result of many complex and interrelated systems acting together, such as the ocean current, trade winds, and the distribution of the sun’s rays across our planet. As it is such a complicated occurrence, it’s reasonable to expect varied effects across different regions.    

Regional effects of climate change include the recent European heatwaves (Patz et al., 2005), increases in the range of many vector-borne diseases such as dengue fever and malaria (Rogers and Randolph, 2000), and up to 200 million people will be at increased risk for floods and storm surges (Patz et al., 2005).

Evolutionary biology is one of the widest fields of biology. It integrates many other sciences such as geology and genetics through to physics (Rymer, 2018). Evolutionary biology sheds light on how everything living came to be here, and how and where it is going in the future. It is an incredibly important field of science, and only more so in the light of climatic change.

The two are incredibly connected. Organisms adapt and optimise themselves to survive best in their current environment through natural selection, but this can be really thrown off by the kind of rapidly shifting environment caused by climate change.  

This is a very important field of study. As the climate changes so do the pressures on organisms, causing altered states of evolution over just a few generations. An example would be ‘if plants evolve larger root systems in response to prolonged drought, they may deposit more carbon into the soil, thus increasing rates of carbon sequestration.’ (Monroe et al., 2018). This could lead to acceleration or mediation of climate change and is well worth researching.

Next week: A focus on insects

Bonus Resources: 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180220170351.htm

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/11/will-human-evolution-be-shaped-by-climate-change/

http://ecologyandevolution.cornell.edu/environmental-change-biodiversity

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What’s up with the wacky weather?

I live in the tropics of Australia. Admittedly not for my whole life, I moved here when I was 9. But growing up in this ever-changing environment, I have certainly noticed changes in the weather patterns over the time I’ve been here. What was once a defined seasonal wet/dry pattern has over time, become more and more erratic. 

Strange weather seems ever more present in our lives, from the UK’s heatwaves that beat records over and over again, to the tropical cyclones that come earlier and stronger than ever before. Something is happening to our climate.

Most people are aware of climate change as a concept, however many assume it is just a synonym for global warming, and many have questions:

Why is this important? Why is it happening? Why should I care? Is there scientific consensus? Will it affect me? How will it affect the economy? Isn’t climate change a natural event? How bad can it get? What can we do? 

There’s a lot of misinformation, confusion, scaremongering and downplaying of information around, especially with the interests of big businesses and politicians. My goal is to inform using actual scientific sources without being confusing, overly complicated, or biased. To start off with:

Climate change refers to the widespread changes in global weather patterns, including the location and amount of rain and snow, strength and frequency of extreme weather events (e.g. cyclones, tornadoes) and temperature change  (Karl and Trenberth, 2003).

Global warming is an effect of climate change and refers specifically to an increase in the overall global temperature, which may not be seen everywhere  (Shi, Wang and Yang, 2010). 

Both phenomena have wide-reaching effects such as sea level changes, extinction of species and melting of ice caps and both are not expressed as a uniform change across the globe, but as changes to the norm of each area (NASA, 2018). As you might imagine, change on this global scale has far-reaching impacts on each and every organism that lives on our planet. 

Next week: A deeper look into the causes, the animals and people affected and the future of this blog

Bonus resources to explore:

http://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/climate-science-data/climate-science/understanding-climate-change

https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-is-climate-change-58.html

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/#tabs=Trackerandtracker=timeseries