• Energy Research

The subtropical forest transition zone in southern China is a typical transition zone with high coverage and diverse vegetation. Projected climate change will affect physiological processes of trees, which would consequently alter the forest aboveground biomass (AGB) and composition at broad spatial scales. However, spatially heterogeneous responses may also be shaped by climate change, succession, and harvesting in different forest habitats. The objectives of this study were to assess the changes in subtropical forest AGB and composition in response to climate change, while comparing the responses of two similar forest landscapes: Taihe County (TH) and Longnan County (LN). We used a loose-coupling of PnET-II with LANDIS-II to simulate changes in forest AGB and composition under climate change scenarios (Current climate, RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, and RCP8.5) with harvest disturbances. Our simulation results demonstrated that forest AGB and composition were significantly affected by climate change in both landscapes. Changes in forest AGB was mostly driven by succession and harvest, but climate change also greatly contribute to the variation in AGB of deciduous broad-leaved forests (DBF), and coniferous forests (CF). Moreover, a larger area of LN experienced biomass reduction compared to TH, specifically under the RCP8.5 scenario. Given our estimates of the response in forest AGB and composition under climate change scenarios across different periods, we recommend that the regional forest management should be localized and should consider the effects of climate change through time in their planning schemes.

Biodiversity loss and variation in species responses to climate and land use change have been found across broad taxonomic groups. However, whether species from the same taxonomic group with distinct geographical ranges will respond differently is poorly understood. The aim of this study is to predict the potential impacts of future climate and land use change on the distribution of narrow- and wide-ranging Rhododendron species, and estimate their relative contribution in China. We applied the presence-only ecological niche model MaxEnt to predict the distribution of 10 narrow-ranging and 10 wide-ranging Rhododendron species for the year 2070, using three general circulation models and three scenarios of climate and land use change. We measured the predicted distribution change of each species using change ratio, distance and direction of core range shifts, and niche overlap using Schoener's D. We found that the distribution areas of six narrow-ranging species would decrease, of which one species would go extinct. The remaining four narrow-ranging species would experience range expansion. Distribution of all the wide-ranging Rhododendron species would decrease. All Rhododendrons will shift to the northwest. We conclude that Rhododendron species generally will be negatively affected by the climatic and land use change expected in 2070 from the three scenarios evaluated in this study, but some narrow-ranging species may be positively influenced. Narrow-ranging Rhododendron species are more vulnerable compared to wide-ranging Rhododendron species. This study demonstrated that the effects of climate and land use change on alpine and subalpine plant species is species-specific, thereby strengthening our understanding of the impacts of climate and land use change on plant distribution.

Humans possess limited knowledge on what generated cultural dynamics to strengthen human resilience to overcome climate-induced stresses. Although the highly developed mental ability of humans could have enabled significant human resilience in history, no study has empirically explained or has even scientifically confirmed how and when such dynamics arose. To fill the current research gap, this study therefore explores the associations among climatic conditions, the evolutional dynamics of human thinkers and their thoughts, and human ecological-socioeconomic conditions in the past 2500 years in Europe. Results from quantitative modellings and causal analyses confirm that climatic-ecological stresses led to human ecological-socioeconomic crises, and thereby dramatically increased twice of the thinkers' number and their thoughts' impact across different philosophies in truth, knowledge, and ethics for adaptation at multi-decadal to centennial temporal scales, especially in spirituality oriented mentality. The process of the stress-generated cultural dynamics displays some similarities with the stress-induced mutagenesis in organism evolution. Ultimately, climatic-ecological stresses prompt the escalation in the number of thinkers and impacts of their thoughts and flourishing of philosophy. Such stress-regenerated cultural dynamics imply that the current climate change threat may stimulate another thriving phase of cultural selection and lift humans to the next homeostatic plateau of civilization. Findings also extend the cognate scope of psychological, sociological, and civilization studies.