• Energy Research
• 15. Life on land close
• 2. Zero hunger close
• EU close
• GB close
• ZENODO close

Input files for the ForClim model (version 4.0.1) used in the associated paper. They can be used to to reproduce results of the simulation study. The ForClim model, including the source code, executable and documentation, is freely available under an Open Access license from the website of the original developers at https://ites-fe.ethz.ch/openaccess/. The original climatic dataset used to generate the ForClim input climate files at each site in South Tyrol is freely available at https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.924502 while the CHELSA climate data for future scenarios are available at https://www.chelsa-climate.org. If interested in using this dataset for a research study or a project, please contact Marco Mina ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Hillebrand L, Marzini S, Crespi A, Hiltner U & Mina M (2023) Contrasting impacts of climate change on protection forests of the Italian Alps. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 6, 2023 https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2023.1240235 ABSTRACT. Protection forests play a key role in protecting settlements, people, and infrastructures from gravitational hazards such as rockfalls and avalanches in mountain areas. Rapid climate change is challenging the role of protection forests by altering their dynamics, structure, and composition. Information on local- and regional-scale impacts of climate change on protection forests is critical for planning adaptations in forest management. We used a model of forest dynamics (ForClim) to assess the succession of mountain forests in the Eastern Alps and their protective effects under future climate change scenarios. We investigated eleven representative forest sites along an elevational gradient across multiple locations within an administrative region, covering wide differences in tree species structure, composition, altitude, and exposition. We evaluated protective performance against rockfall and avalanches using numerical indices (i.e., linker functions) quantifying the degree of protection from metrics of simulated forest structure and composition. Our findings reveal that climate warming has a contrasting impact on protective effects in mountain forests of the Eastern Alps. Climate change is likely to not affect negatively all protection forest stands but its impact depends on site and stand conditions. Impacts were highly contingent to the magnitude of climate warming, with increasing criticality under the most severe climate projections. Forests in lower-montane elevations and those located in dry continental valleys showed drastic changes in forest structure and composition due to drought-induced mortality while subalpine forests mostly profited from rising temperatures and a longer vegetation period. Overall, avalanche protection will likely be negatively affected by climate change, while the ability of forests to maintain rockfall protection depends on the severity of expected climate change and their vulnerability due to elevation and topography, with most subalpine forests less prone to loosing protective effects. Proactive measures in management should be taken in the near future to avoid losses of protective effects in the case of severe climate change in the Alps. Given the heterogeneous impact of climate warming, such adaptations can be aided by model-based projections and high local resolution studies to identify forest stand types that might require management priority for maintaining protective effects in the future.

As part of global efforts to reduce dependence on carbon-based energy sources there has been a rapid increase in the installation of renewable energy devices. The installation and operation of these devices can result in conflicts with wildlife. In the marine environment, mammals may avoid wind farms that are under construction or operating. Such avoidance may lead to more time spent travelling or displacement from key habitats. A paucity of data on at-sea movements of marine mammals around wind farms limits our understanding of the nature of their potential impacts. Here, we present the results of a telemetry study on harbour seals Phoca vitulina in The Wash, south-east England, an area where wind farms are being constructed using impact pile driving. We investigated whether seals avoid wind farms during operation, construction in its entirety, or during piling activity. The study was carried out using historical telemetry data collected prior to any wind farm development and telemetry data collected in 2012 during the construction of one wind farm and the operation of another. Within an operational wind farm, there was a close-to-significant increase in seal usage compared to prior to wind farm development. However, the wind farm was at the edge of a large area of increased usage, so the presence of the wind farm was unlikely to be the cause. There was no significant displacement during construction as a whole. However, during piling, seal usage (abundance) was significantly reduced up to 25 km from the piling activity; within 25 km of the centre of the wind farm, there was a 19 to 83% (95% confidence intervals) decrease in usage compared to during breaks in piling, equating to a mean estimated displacement of 440 individuals. This amounts to significant displacement starting from predicted received levels of between 166 and 178 dB re 1 μPa(p-p). Displacement was limited to piling activity; within 2 h of cessation of pile driving, seals were distributed as per the non-piling scenario. Synthesis and applications. Our spatial and temporal quantification of avoidance of wind farms by harbour seals is critical to reduce uncertainty and increase robustness in environmental impact assessments of future developments. Specifically, the results will allow policymakers to produce industry guidance on the likelihood of displacement of seals in response to pile driving; the relationship between sound levels and avoidance rates; and the duration of any avoidance, thus allowing far more accurate environmental assessments to be carried out during the consenting process. Further, our results can be used to inform mitigation strategies in terms of both the sound levels likely to cause displacement and what temporal patterns of piling would minimize the magnitude of the energetic impacts of displacement. Wash_diagWash_diag.xlsx is the historic location data (pre windfarm construction) for the 19 individuals used in the analysis described in Russell et al.

Here, we investigate how stochasticity and age-dependence in energy dynamics influence maternal allocation in iteroparous females. We develop a state-dependent model to calculate the optimal maternal allocation strategy with respect to maternal age and energy reserves, focusing on allocation in a single offspring at a time. We introduce stochasticity in energetic costs– in terms of the amount of energy required to forage successfully and individual differences in metabolism – and in feeding success. We systematically assess how allocation is influenced by age-dependence in energetic costs, feeding success, energy intake per successful feeding attempt, and environmentally-driven mortality. First, using stochastic dynamic programming, we calculate the optimal amount of reserves M that mothers allocate to each offspring depending on their own reserves R and age A. The optimal life history strategy is then the set of allocation decisions M(R, A) over the whole lifespan which maximizes the total reproductive success of distant descendants. Second, we simulated the life histories of 1000 mothers following the optimisation strategy and the reserves at the start of adulthood R1, the distribution of which was determined, the distribution of which was determined using an iterative procedure as described . For each individual, we calculated maternal allocation Mt, maternal reserves Rt, and relative allocation Mt⁄Rt at each time period t. The relative allocation helps us to understand how resources are partitioned between mother and offspring. Third, we consider how the optimal strategy varies when there is age-dependence in resource acquisition, energetic costs and survival. Specifically, we include varying scenarios with an age-dependent increase or a decrease with age in energetic costs (c_t), feeding success (q_t), energy intake per successful feeding attempt (y_t), and environmentally-driven extrinsic mortality rate (d_t) (Table 2). We consider the age-dependence of parameters one at a time or in pairs, altering the slope, intercept, or asymptote of the age-dependence (linear or asymptotic function). Our aim is to identify whether the observed reproductive senescence can arise from optimal maternal allocation. As such, we do not impose a decline in selection in later life as all offspring are equally valuable at all ages (for a given maternal allocation), and there are no mutations. For each scenario, we run the backward iteration process with these age-dependent functions, obtain the allocation strategy, and simulate the life history of 1000 individuals based on the novel strategy. We then fit quadratic and linear models to the reproduction of these 1000 individuals using the lme function, nlme package in R. For these models, the response variable is the maternal allocation Mt and explanatory variables are the time period t and t2 (for the quadratic fit only), with individual identity as a random term. We use likelihood ratio tests to compare linear and quadratic models using the anova function (package nlme) with the maximum-likelihood method. If the comparison is significant (p-value <0.05), we considered the quadratic model to have a better fit, otherwise the linear model is considered more parsimonious. We were particularly interested in identifying scenarios where the fit was quadratic with a negative quadratic term. For each scenario, the pseudo R2 conditional value (proportion of variance explained by the fixed and random terms, accounting for individual identity) is calculated to assess the goodness-of-fit of the lme model, on a scale from 0 to 1, using the “r.squared” function, package gabtool. All calculations and coding are done in R. Iteroparous parents face a trade-off between allocating current resources to reproduction versus maximizing survival to produce further offspring. Optimal allocation varies across age, and follows a hump-shaped pattern across diverse taxa, including mammals, birds and invertebrates. This non-linear allocation pattern lacks a general theoretical explanation, potentially because most studies focus on offspring number rather than quality and do not incorporate uncertainty or age-dependence in energy intake or costs. Here, we develop a life history model of maternal allocation in iteroparous animals. We identify the optimal allocation strategy in response to stochasticity when energetic costs, feeding success, energy intake, and environmentally-driven mortality risk are age-dependent. As a case study, we use tsetse, a viviparous insect that produces one offspring per reproductive attempt and relies on an uncertain food supply of vertebrate blood. Diverse scenarios generate a hump-shaped allocation: when energetic costs and energy intake increase with age; and also when energy intake decreases, and energetic costs increase or decrease. Feeding success and mortality risk have little influence on age-dependence in allocation. We conclude that ubiquitous evidence for age-dependence in these influential traits can explain the prevalence of non-linear maternal allocation across diverse taxonomic groups.

Variable list for files: SW wind - Section table on Skomer (Standardised).csv / NW wind - Section table on Skomer (Standardised).csv / SE wind - Section table on Skomer (Standardised).csv /NE wind - Section table on Skomer (Standardised).csv and SW wind - Sections on Skokholm (Standardised).csv FID: Row ID (for use in ArcGIs) Count: Number of guillemots per section Area: Total area of each section () Density: Density of guillemots per section (number of birds/ Area) X_Centre: X coordinate of the central point of each section Y_Centre: Y coordinate of the central point of each section Sector: Section ID MeanUMedian; MeanUIQR, MeanUSkewness, MeanUCV: Median, interquartile range,skewness and coefficient of variation of mean wind speed per section HorizontalMedian;HorizontalIQR,HorizontalSkewness,HorizontalCV: Median, interquartile range,skewness and coefficient of variation of horizontal wind speed per section PMedian;PIQR,PSkewness,PCV: Median, interquartile range,skewness and coefficient of variation of preessure per section TKEMedian;TKEIQR,TKESkewness,TKECV: Median, interquartile range,skewness and coefficient of variation of turbulent kinetic energy per section TIMedian;TIIQR,TISkewness,TICV: Median, interquartile range,skewness and coefficient of variation of turbulence intensity per section U_2Median;lU_2IQR;U_2Skewness;U_2CV: Median, interquartile range,skewness and coefficient of variation of vertical wind speed per section EpsilonMedian;EpsilonIQR,EpsilonSkewness,EpsilonCV: Median, interquartile range,skewness and coefficient of variation of turbulent dissipation rate per section NutMedian;NutIQR,NutSkewness,NutCV: Median, interquartile range,skewness and coefficient of variation of kinematic viscosity per section GustsMedian;GustsIQR,GustsSkewness,GustsCV: Median, interquartile range,skewness and coefficient of variation of instataneous gusts per section MeanSectorSlope: Mean slope per section ColPresence: Binomial variable, indicating whether a section has birds or not. This variable varies with classification, based on either the count of birds or the density per section Variable list for file: Section table on Skomer - with Mean cliff orientation and Slope (NOT-Standardised).csv FID: Row ID (for use in ArcGIs) Count: Number of guillemots per section Area: Total area of each section () Density: Density of guillemots per section (number of birds/ Area) X_Centre: X coordinate of the central point of each section Y_Centre: Y coordinate of the central point of each section Sector: Section ID MeanSectorSlope: Mean slope per section MeanSectorAspectCircular: Mean cliff orientation per section ApsectClass: Factor indicating whether the mean cliff orientation is lee- or windward to the SW wind ColPresence: Binomial variable, indicating whether a section has birds or not. This variable varies with classification, based on either the count of birds or the density per section Variable list for file: SW wind - Sections on Skokholm to predict colonies using cliff orientation and slope model from Skomer (NON - Standardised).csv FID: Row ID (for use in ArcGIs) Count: Number of guillemots per section Area: Total area of each section () Density: Density of guillemots per section (number of birds/ Area) Sector: Section ID MeanSectorSlope: Mean slope per section MeanSectorAspectCircular: Mean cliff orientation per section Wind is fundamentally related to shelter and flight performance: two factors that are critical for birds at their nest sites. Despite this, airflows have never been fully integrated into models of breeding habitat selection, even for well-studied seabirds. Here we use computational fluid dynamics to provide the first assessment of whether flow characteristics (including wind speed and turbulence) predict the distribution of seabird colonies, taking common guillemots (Uria aalge) breeding on Skomer island as our study system. This demonstrates that occupancy is driven by the need to shelter from both wind and rain/ wave action, rather than airflow characteristics alone. Models of airflows and cliff orientation both performed well in predicting high quality habitat in our study site, identifying 80% of colonies and 93% of avoided sites, as well as 73% of the largest colonies on a neighbouring island. This suggests generality in the mechanisms driving breeding distributions, and provides an approach for identifying habitat for seabird reintroductions considering current and projected wind speeds and directions. Methods detailed in manuscript: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.05733.

Comprehensive and reliable information on anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gas emissions is required to track progress towards keeping warming well below 2°C as agreed upon in the Paris Agreement. Here we provide a dataset on anthropogenic GHG emissions 1970-2019 with a broad country and sector coverage. We build the dataset from recent releases from the “Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research” (EDGAR) for CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industry (FFI), CH4 emissions, N2O emissions, and fluorinated gases and use a well-established fast-track method to extend this dataset from 2018 to 2019. We complement this with information on net CO2 emissions from land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) from three available bookkeeping models.

Aim: Climate warming and biodiversity loss both alter plant productivity, yet we lack an understanding of how biodiversity regulates the responses of ecosystems to warming. In this study, we examine how plant diversity regulates the responses of grassland productivity to experimental warming using meta-analytic techniques. Location: Global Major taxa studied: Grassland ecosystems Methods: Our meta-analysis is based on warming responses of 40 different plant communities obtained from 20 independent studies on grasslands across five continents. Results: Our results show that plant diversity and its responses to warming were the most important factors regulating the warming effects on plant productivity, among all the factors considered (plant diversity, climate and experimental settings). Specifically, warming increased plant productivity when plant diversity (indicated by effective number of species) in grasslands was lesser than 10, whereas warming decreased plant productivity when plant diversity was greater than 10. Moreover, the structural equation modelling showed that the magnitude of warming enhanced plant productivity by increasing the performance of dominant plant species in grasslands of diversity lesser than 10. The negative effects of warming on productivity in grasslands with plant diversity greater than 10 were partly explained by diversity-induced decline in plant dominance. Main Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the positive or negative effect of warming on grassland productivity depends on how biodiverse a grassland is. This could mainly owe to differences in how warming may affect plant dominance and subsequent shifts in interspecific interactions in grasslands of different plant diversity levels.

This dataset contains two metrics for climate change exposure using downscaled climate projections with the SRES A2 emissions scenario (Tabor and Williams, 2007).The metrics represent dissimilarity measurements of the squared Euclidean distance between seasonal (June–August and December–February) temperature and precipitation variables in the 20th century climate and mid-21st century climate. (1) disappearing climate risk - measure of dissimilarity between a pixel’s late 20th century climate and its closest matching pixel in the global set of 21st-century climates (2) novel climate risk - measure of dissimilarity between a pixel’s future climate and its closest matching pixel in the global set of late 20th-century climates. The data are in arcASCII format. All data are in units of standard Euclidean distance and multiplied by 1000. This is the original data. To scale the data similar to Tabor et al. (2018), remove outliers above the 99th percentile distribution before rescaling from 0-1. Unprojected number of columns 2160 number of rows 857 Lower Left X Center -179.917 Lower Left Y Center -59.084 Cell size 0.166667 decimal degrees (10 minutes or ~17 km) {"references": ["Tabor, K. et al. (2018). Tropical Protected Areas Under Increasing Threats from Climate Change and Deforestation: https://doi.org/10.3390/land7030090", "Tabor and Williams (2010). Globally downscaled climate projections for assessing the conservation impacts of climate change. https://doi.org/10.1890/09-0173.1", "Williams, J.W. et al. (2007). Projected distributions of novel and disappearing climates by 20100 AD. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0606292104"]} Support for this project was provided by Conservation International, the Land Tenure Center at the University of Wisconsin, the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin, and the Environment Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. This research has been funded in part by the Walton Family Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and a gift from Betty and Gordon Moore.

# Data from: Blue Carbon Benefits from Global Saltmarsh Restoration [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pc866t1vp](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pc866t1vp) This README file was generated on 12th September 2023 by Victoria Mason. **Title of Dataset:** Blue carbon benefits from global saltmarsh restoration. **Author information:** * Victoria G. Mason, Bangor University/Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), victoria.mason@nioz.nl (*Corresponding author*) * Annette Burden, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology * Graham Epstein, University of Exeter/University of Victoria * Lucy L. Jupe, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust * Kevin A. Wood, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust * Martin W. Skov, Bangor University **Summary of dataset:** These data include all data which were extracted or derived from relevant studies on global saltmarsh carbon storage and greenhouse gas flux. Data were obtained following screening of 29,182 peer reviewed published studies for relevant data, which were then extracted from 431 studies via text, tables and figures. We then used a meta-analysis to assess drivers of variation in global saltmarsh and greenhouse gas flux. * Date of literature search: 21st January 2022. * Date of data extraction: February - March 2022 * Literature search conducted via: Scopus + Web of Science ## Description of the data and file structure The contents of these data include: * **Full dataset (Aug2023\_GlobalCarbonReview\_FullDataset.xls):** All data extracted from 431 relevant studies and used in analysis. This includes a title page, metadata (with descriptions of column headers) and the full dataset. Response variables included: * Carbon stock * Percentage organic carbon * Bulk density * Sediment accretion rate * Carbon accumulation rate * Carbon dioxide flux * Methane flux * Nitrous oxide flux **\- Data on each included study \(Aug2023\_GlobalCarbonReview\_IncludedStudies\.xls\):** List of each study included in the final analysis, and its metadata. This includes a title page, metadata (with descriptions of column headers) and the dataset. All data include standard deviation (SD) and n (number of replicates) where provided by the original study, which were used to calculate Hedge's *g* effect sizes reported in the subsequent study. | Frequently used abbreviations: | | | ------------------------------ | --- | | C | carbon | | OC | organic carbon | | GHG | greenhouse gas | | bd | bulk density (g cm-3 dry sediment) | | Y/N | yes/no | | ref | reference | | lat | latitude | | long | longitude | | rest | restoration | | prec | precipitation | | sal | salinity | | acc | accretion | | resp | respiration | | SR | soil respiration (appears for CO2 flux) | | ER | ecosystem respiration (appears for CO2 flux) | | n | number of samples included in mean/standard deviation | | sd | standard deviation | All abbreviations used are outlined in the ‘Metadata’ worksheet of .xls files. **Data specific information for Aug2023\_GlobalCarbonReview\_FullDataset.xls:** Number of variables: 88 Number of cases/rows: 2055 Variables included: See 'Metadata' sheet **Data specific information for** **Aug2023\_GlobalCarbonReview\_IncludedStudies.xls:** Number of variables: 47 Number of cases/rows: 431 Variables included: See 'Metadata' sheet **Empty cells:** Cells are empty where data on that variable were not provided by the original study from which they were extracted. For example, where a study provided data on carbon stock variables, but not greenhouse gas flux. For further details, see the 'Metadata' sheets of each file. ## Sharing/Access information These data are available via Dryad, and described in ‘Blue Carbon Benefits from Global Saltmarsh Restoration’, in Global Change Biology. **DOI:** 10.1111/gcb.16943 Data were extracted from 431 published peer reviewed articles, the details of which can be found in the attached datasheets. Coastal saltmarshes are found globally, yet are 25–50% reduced compared to their historical cover. Restoration is incentivised by the promise that marshes are efficient storers of ‘blue’ carbon, although the claim lacks substantiation across global contexts. We synthesised data from 431 studies to quantify the benefits of saltmarsh restoration to carbon accumulation and greenhouse gas uptake. The results showed global marshes store approximately 1.41–2.44 Pg carbon. Restored marshes had very low greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes and rapid carbon accumulation, resulting in a mean net accumulation rate of 64.70 t CO2e ha-1 y-1. Using this estimate and potential restoration rates, we find saltmarsh regeneration could result in 12.93–207.03 Mt CO2e accumulation per year, offsetting the equivalent of up to 0.51% global-energy-related CO2 emissions – a substantial amount, considering marshes represent <1% of Earth’s surface. Carbon accumulation rates and GHG fluxes varied contextually with temperature, rainfall and dominant vegetation, with the eastern costs of the USA and Australia being particular hotspots for carbon storage. Whilst the study reveals paucity of data for some variables and continents, suggesting a need for further research, the potential for saltmarsh restoration to offset carbon emissions is clear. The ability to facilitate natural carbon accumulation by saltmarshes now rests principally on the action of the management-policy community and on financial opportunities for supporting restoration.