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Conservation of thermally sensitive species depends on monitoring organismal and population-level responses to environmental change in real time. Epigenetic processes are increasingly recognized as key integrators of environmental conditions into developmentally plastic responses, and attendant epigenomic datasets hold potential for revealing cryptic phenotypes relevant to conservation efforts. Here, we demonstrate the utility of genome-wide DNA methylation (DNAm) patterns in the face of climate change for a group of especially vulnerable species, those with temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD). Due to their reliance on thermal cues during development to determine sexual fate, contemporary shifts in temperature are predicted to skew offspring sex ratios and ultimately destabilize sensitive populations. Using reduced-representation bisulfite sequencing, we profiled the DNA methylome in blood cells of hatchling American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis), a TSD species lacking reliable markers of sexual dimorphism in early life-stages. We identified 120 sex-associated differentially methylated cytosines (DMCs; FDR < 0.1) in hatchlings incubated under a range of temperatures, as well as 707 unique temperature-associated DMCs. We further developed DNAm-based models capable of predicting hatchling sex with 100% accuracy (in 20 training samples and 4 test samples) and past incubation temperature with a mean absolute error of 1.2˚C (in 4 test samples) based on the methylation status of 20 and 24 loci, respectively. Though largely independent of epigenomic patterning occurring in the embryonic gonad during TSD, DNAm patterns in blood cells may serve as non-lethal markers of hatchling sex and past incubation conditions in conservation applications. These findings also raise intriguing questions regarding tissue-specific epigenomic patterning in the context of developmental plasticity. 

The ecological impacts of multiple stressors are hard to predict but important to understand. When multiple stressors influence foundation species, the effects can cascade throughout the ecosystem. Gulf of Mexico seagrass ecosystems are currently experiencing a suite of novel stressors, including warmer water temperatures and increased herbivory due to tropicalization and conservation efforts. We investigated the impact of warming temperatures and grazing history on plant performance, morphology, and palatability by integrating a mesocosm study using the seagrass Thalassia testudinum with feeding trials using the sea urchin Lytechinus variegatus. Warming temperatures negatively impacted T. testudinum tolerance traits, reducing belowground biomass by 34%, productivity by 74%, shoot density by 10%, and the number of leaves per plant by 24%, and negatively impacted resistance traits through 13% lower toughness of young leaves and a trend for reduced leaf carbon:nitrogen. Lytechinus variegatus individuals preferred to consume plants grown under heated conditions, which supports findings of enhanced palatability. Simulated turtle grazing impacted more plant traits than grazing by other herbivores, potentially diminishing plant resilience to future disturbances through reduced rhizome non-structural carbohydrate concentrations and increasing palatability through reduced fiber content and 23% lower leaf carbon:phosphorus. Simulated turtle, simulated parrotfish, and urchin grazing reduced leaf carbon:nitrogen by 11%, also potentially increasing nutritive value. Interactions between warming temperatures and grazers on plant traits were additive for 16 out of 19 response variables. However, the stressors non-additively impacted the number of leaves per plant, fiber content, and epiphyte load. We suggest that the impacts of grazers on leaf turnover rate and leaf age may vary based on water temperature, potentially driving these interactions. Overall, increased temperatures and grazing pressure will likely reduce seagrass resilience, structure, and biomass, potentially impacting feedback systems and producing negative consequences for seagrass cover, associated species, and ecosystem services.

This repository contains postprocessed results that are part of the paper "Identification of reliable locations for wind power generation through a global analysis of wind droughts" published in Communications Earth & Environment. The results are provided on a latitude-longitude grid, except where specified, and include: mean wind speed, annual mean wind speed, mean wind power density, annual mean wind power density, minumum annual mean wind power density, energy deficits for seasonal variability, energy deficits for weather variability, energy deficits for wind droughts, wind speed time series at Lat 53.00 Lon 3.00. Code and instructions required to reproduce these results are available in the GitHub repository at https://github.com/eantonini/Global_wind_droughts.

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.

Anthropogenic structures (e.g. weirs and dams) fragment river networks and restrict the movement of migratory fish. Poor understanding of behavioural response to hydrodynamic cues at structures currently limits the development of effective barrier mitigation measures. This study aimed to assess the effect of flow constriction and associated flow patterns on eel behaviour during downstream migration. In a field experiment, we tracked the movements of 40 tagged adult European eels (Anguilla anguilla) through the forebay of a redundant hydropower intake under two manipulated hydrodynamic treatments. Interrogation of fish trajectories in relation to measured and modelled water velocities provided new insights into behaviour, fundamental for developing passage technologies for this endangered species. Eels rarely followed direct routes through the site. Initially, fish aligned with streamlines near the channel banks and approached the intake semi-passively. A switch to more energetically costly avoidance behaviours occurred on encountering constricted flow, prior to physical contact with structures. Under high water velocity gradients, fish then tended to escape rapidly back upstream, whereas exploratory ‘search’ behaviour was common when acceleration was low. This study highlights the importance of hydrodynamics in informing eel behaviour. This offers potential to develop behavioural guidance, improve fish passage solutions and enhance traditional physical screening. Fish_detections_UL_CHFish positions derived from acoustic telemetry contained within excel file with 5 columns. 'Record' denotes tag detection numbered consecutively in sequence; 'tag_number' denotes the fish identification number; ‘PosX’ denotes fish x coordinate in UTM; ‘PosY’ denotes fish y coordinate in UTM, ‘Treatment’ denotes experimental treatment

# Replication code and data for: Aging in a warming world: global projections of cumulative and acute heat exposure of older adults By Giacomo Falchetta, Enrica De Cian, Ian Sue Wing and Deborah Carr Software requirements: - R v4.3+: https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/ - RStudio: v2023.06.0+: https://posit.co/download/rstudio-desktop/ - Package dependencies: raster, sf, tidyverse, rasterVis, rgdal, maptools, pbapply, terra, knitr, kableExtra, modelsummary, openxlsx, xtable, ggforce, maptools, weights, spatstat, rworldmap, scales, patchwork, stars, viridis, devtools, stargazer, readxl, nominatimlite, urbnmapr To replicate the analysis: - Clone the replication code repository from https://github.com/giacfalk/aging_climate - Download input data from this Zenodo data repository - Download all the 1km age and gender-stratified global population counts rasters from the following WorldPop page https://hub.worldpop.org/geodata/summary?id=24798 and put them in a subdirectory of the working directory called "AGEPOP" - Run the "project_pop.R" script to generate gridded age-stratified population data for each SSP scenario - Run the "compare_pop_projections.R" file to compare the generated gridded age-stratified population data with an array of pre-existing sources from different countries and produce a summary comparison table (NOTE: before running the script, decompress the "new_comparison_data.zip" folder into the working directory) - Run "projections_exposure_m.R" to quantify heat exposure and generate the figures and tables reported in the paper To process the data and run succesfully, the script requires a computer with at least 32GB RAM. The running time varies based on CPU characteristics, but a runtime of at least 2 hours should be expected to generate all the output data, figures, and tables. All output files are saved in the working directory. Manuscript under peer review. Upon publication, a link to the paper will be made available at this repository. ___ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

We discontinued this version of the dataset.