• Energy Research
• 2016-2025close
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Abstract The white‐clawed crayfish (Austropotamobius pallipes) is globally endangered due to the impacts of habitat modification and fragmentation, water pollution, climate change, and invasive species, particularly the signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus). These pressures have caused the decline of A. pallipes populations in Europe, demonstrating the importance of predicting the species' potential distribution under current and future conditions. Focusing on the watercourses of mainland France, we aimed to identify suitable areas for A. pallipes to guide the conservation of current populations and future introduction actions or protection measures. We applied ecological niche modelling to model the potential distribution of both A. pallipes and P. leniusculus and identified locations suitable for A. pallipes only. We also assessed the potential distribution of the species under two representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios: RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5, respectively describing low‐warming and high‐warming conditions. We found that A. pallipes and P. leniusculus exploit equivalent niches in France. Despite this, under current conditions, about 5% of the study area simultaneously records a high suitability for A. pallipes and a low suitability for P. leniusculus and is therefore of significant conservation interest. This percentage remains relatively stable under RCP 2.6 for 2050 and 2100, but decreases to 2% under RCP 8.5 for 2100. Ecological niche modelling can supply crucial guidance for conservation actions aimed at protecting endangered species at a national scale by identifying sites most suitable for protection and sites where climate change and invasive species constitute a threat.

Abstract The white‐clawed crayfish (Austropotamobius pallipes) is globally endangered due to the impacts of habitat modification and fragmentation, water pollution, climate change, and invasive species, particularly the signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus). These pressures have caused the decline of A. pallipes populations in Europe, demonstrating the importance of predicting the species' potential distribution under current and future conditions. Focusing on the watercourses of mainland France, we aimed to identify suitable areas for A. pallipes to guide the conservation of current populations and future introduction actions or protection measures. We applied ecological niche modelling to model the potential distribution of both A. pallipes and P. leniusculus and identified locations suitable for A. pallipes only. We also assessed the potential distribution of the species under two representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios: RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5, respectively describing low‐warming and high‐warming conditions. We found that A. pallipes and P. leniusculus exploit equivalent niches in France. Despite this, under current conditions, about 5% of the study area simultaneously records a high suitability for A. pallipes and a low suitability for P. leniusculus and is therefore of significant conservation interest. This percentage remains relatively stable under RCP 2.6 for 2050 and 2100, but decreases to 2% under RCP 8.5 for 2100. Ecological niche modelling can supply crucial guidance for conservation actions aimed at protecting endangered species at a national scale by identifying sites most suitable for protection and sites where climate change and invasive species constitute a threat.

Reducing global emissions will require a global cosmopolitan culture built from detailed attention to conflicting national climate change frames (interpretations) in media discourse. The authors analyze the global field of media climate change discourse using 17 diverse cases and 131 frames. They find four main conflicting dimensions of difference: validity of climate science, scale of ecological risk, scale of climate politics, and support for mitigation policy. These dimensions yield four clusters of cases producing a fractured global field. Positive values on the dimensions show modest association with emissions reductions. Data-mining media research is needed to determine trends in this global field.

Reducing global emissions will require a global cosmopolitan culture built from detailed attention to conflicting national climate change frames (interpretations) in media discourse. The authors analyze the global field of media climate change discourse using 17 diverse cases and 131 frames. They find four main conflicting dimensions of difference: validity of climate science, scale of ecological risk, scale of climate politics, and support for mitigation policy. These dimensions yield four clusters of cases producing a fractured global field. Positive values on the dimensions show modest association with emissions reductions. Data-mining media research is needed to determine trends in this global field.

Increasing forest wildfires in Portugal remain a growing concern since forests in the Mediterranean region are vulnerable to recent global warming and reduction of precipitation. Therefore, a long-term negative effect is expected on the vegetation, with increasing drought and areas burnt by fires. The strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo L.) is particularly used in Portugal to produce a spirit by processing its fruits and is the main income for forestry owners. Other applications are possible due to the fruit and leaves' anti-oxidant properties and bioactive compounds production, with a potential for clinical and food uses. It is a sclerophyllous plant, dry-adapted and fire resistant, enduring the Mediterranean climate, and recently considered as a possibility for afforestation, to intensify forest discontinuity where pines and eucalypts monoculture dominate the region. To improve our knowledge about the species' spatial distribution we used 318 plots (the centroid of a 1 km2 square grid) measuring the species presence and nine environmental attributes. The seven bioclimatic variables most impacting on the species distribution and two topographic features, slope and altitude, were used. The past, current and future climate data were obtained through WorldClim. Finally, the vulnerability of the strawberry tree to the effects of global climate change was examined in the face of two emission scenarios (RCP 4.5 and 8.5), to predict distribution changes in the years 2050 and 2070, using a species distribution models (MaxEnt). The reduction of suitable habitat for this species is significant in the southern regions, considering the future scenarios of global warming. Central and northern mountainous regions are putative predicted refuges for this species. Forest policy and management should reflect the impact of climate change on the usable areas for forestry, particularly considering species adapted to the Mediterranean regions and wildfires, such as the strawberry tree. The distribution of the species in the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and Mid-Holocene (MH) agrees with previous genetic and paleontological studies in the region, which support putative refuges for the species. Two in the southern and coastal-central regions, since the LGM, and one in the east-central mountainous region, considered as cryptic refugia.