Great kick off meeting of the FutureArtic project in Sitges. Interesting presentations that guarantee a promising development of this project.

The main aims of the Sitges workshop were to:

• Create a platform to get an in depth overview on the past and ongoing research activities within ForHot (the previous experiment at the site).
• Have an official kick-off meeting for the FutureArctic ITN project.

 

 

Climate change will affect arctic and subarctic ecosystems more than other ecosystems worldwide, with temperature increases expected up to 4-6°C. Overarching and basic questions remain unanswered, partially due to limited access of these remote areas and technological limitations: How much carbon will escape from the Arctic under a future climate? How do the multitude of ecosystem processes, driven by plant growth, microbial activities and soil characteristics, interact to determine soil carbon storage capacity?. The H2020 ITN ‘FutureArctic’ aims to pave the way for generalized permanently connected data acquisition systems for key environmental variables and processes.

For more information consult the website FutureArtic

Excellent working sessions at the 7^th ForHot annual meeting in Sitges. Interesting and valuable presentations that will enable to advance in the study of how various ecosystem processes are affected by temperature.

The ForHot project is based on the study of a natural soil warming generated by the earth-quake that shocked S-Iceland in May 2008.

 

On May 29, 2008, there was an earthquake in S-Iceland that measured 6.3 on the Richter scale. One of its many implications was that geothermal systems close to its epicentre were disturbed. At Reykir, one of the campuses of the Agricultural University of Iceland, one such geothermal system moved from its previous location, to a new and previously “cold” area. The new belowground geothermal channels (in the bedrock) resulted in soil temperature to increase in the new area that is ca. 4 ha in size.

For more information consult the website ForHot

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Plant morphology traits, as the size of individual plants, has high functional importance. In a new study in the journal New Phytologist authors analyse the ability of 80 species of European trees species to modify its architecture in response to changes in the environment. Figure: Pixabay

 

Plant morphology has been described as an equilibrium between constraints to plant growth and exogenous environmental stressors. Intraspecific variability in ecological traits confers the ability of a species to adapt to an ever-changing environment.

Fractions of biomass allocation in plants (BAFs) defined as the ratio of plant biomass of organs (the stem, branches, leaves and roots) to total plant biomass, and represent both ecological traits and direct expressions of investment strategies and so have important implications on plant fitness, particularly under current global change.

In a new study in the journal New Phytologist authors combined data on BAFs of trees in > 10 000 forest plots with their distributions in Europe. The study aimed to test whether plant species with wider distributions have more or less variable intraspecific variance of the BAFs foliage–woody biomass and shoot–root ratios than species with limited distribution.

Authors show that a combination of 36% tree genetic diversity and 64% environmental variability explains variance in BAFs and implies that changes in genetic diversity occur quickly. “Genetic diversity should thus play a key role in regulating species responses to future climate change. Loss of habitat, even if transient, could induce a loss of genetic diversity and hinder species survival”, explains Dr. Stavros D. Veresoglou from the Institut fur Biologie, Plant Ecology, Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany and the Faculty of Agriculture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

In summary, the study indicates that BAFs were more variable in trees with extensive distributions. Most notably, authors made the point that it was a higher genetic variability that resulted in more variable BAFs for tree species with extensive distributions. “We thus present evidence that the loss of habitat for tree species through rapid loss of genetic diversity could lower the ability of the species to modify its architecture (BAFs) in response to changes in the environment. It is thus likely that any loss of habitat may not be as reversible as many believe”, says Prof. Josep Peñuelas from CREAF-CSIC.

 

Reference: Veresoglou, S.D., Peñuelas, J. 2019. Variance in biomass-allocation fractions is explained by distribution in European trees. New Phytologist, doi: 10.1111/nph.15686.

 

Life on Earth is the result of evolutionary processes acting on a continuous accumulation of structural and functional information by combination and innovation in the use of matter and endo- (inside the organism) and exosomatic (outside the organism) energy and on discontinuous processes of death and destruction that recycle the materials that form structure, information and energy compounds, such as proteins, DNA and ATP, respectively.

In a new study in the journal Ecological complexity authors define five life laws for these vital processes. These processes cannot exceed natural limits of size and rates because they are constrained by space, matter and energy; biology builds on what is possible within these physicochemical limits

“Learning from the way nature deals with the accumulation of information, the limits of size and the rates at which life can acquire and expend energy and resources for maintenance, growth and competition will help us to model and manage our environmental future and sustainability”, explains Prof. Dennis Baldocchi from University of California, Berkeley.

According to this study, the five most prominent laws pertinent to life and ecology are:

1. The law of mass conservation (introduced by Lomonosov and Lavoisier)
2. The first law of thermodynamics: energy cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system
3. The second law of thermodynamics, the entropy of any isolated system always increases
4. Information content is a power of the size of the material store with an exponent larger than one
5. Basic mechanisms such as natural selection, self-organization and random processes drive evolution, generating the huge complexity of organisms and ecosystems.

“Life has adapted to these ecological laws and physical limits for billions of years, and if we humans want to develop a sustainable world, we would do well to not forget them in our use of space, matter and energy. In the end, we are only another biological species among millions on Earth and are living in a very short period of Earth’s history. We should listen and learn lessons from nature that has had several billion years to evolve and get it as right as possible”, says Prof. Josep Peñuelas from CREAF-CSIC.

Reference: Peñuelas, J., Baldocchi, D. 2019. Life and the five biological laws. Lessons for global change models and sustainability. Ecological Complexity

Premis Ciutat de Barcelona 2018 had been marked with a ceremony held on 14 February 2019, at the  Saló de Cent, Barcelona City Hall, and presided by the mayor Ada Colau.

The jury formed by Isabel Cacho (president), Xavier Rodó, Francisco J. Doblas, Jaume Terradas and Frederic Bartomeus have awarded Marcos Fernández-Martínez, Jordi Sardans and Josep Peñuelas for their work “Global trends in carbon sinks and their relationships with CO2 and temperature” publicated in the Nature Climate Change journal.

 

Aquest dijous, 14 de febrer a les 18.00 hores, l’alcaldessa de Barcelona,  Ada Colau, i el Comissionat de Cultura de l’Ajuntament, Joan Subirats, presidiran la cerimònia de lliurament dels Premis Ciutat de Barcelona 2018. L’acte tindrà lloc al Saló de Cent i serà conduit per l’actriu Àgata Roca.

Amb la direcció artística de Pep Salazar, Onionlab protagonitzarà una performance que combinarà la dansa amb l’art audiovisual, acompanyada per un projecte d’il·luminació dissenyat per Albadalejo, i continguts audiovisuals creats per Crowd studio. La cerimònia es vincularà al Festival Llum Barcelona 2019, que enguany se celebra del 15 al 17 de febrer.

NOTA: per raons d’aforament, no serà possible ubicar càmeres de TV a l’interior del Saló de Cent. Betevé subministrarà el senyal institucional. La persona de contacte per sol·licitar el senyal és Elsa Ortuño (eortuno@beteve.cat). També es podrà fer seguiment de l’acte en streaming a través del web de Barcelona Cultura (www.barcelona.cat/barcelonacultura).

Els mitjans que vulguin assistir a l’acte cal que escriguin un correu premsaicub@bcn.cat.

Els premiats d’aquesta edició han estat:

• Agustí Duran i Sanpere d’Història de Barcelona: Miquel Amengual Bibiloni

• Arquitectura i Urbanisme: Cooperativa d’arquitectes LaCol

• Arts Visuals: HALFHOUSE
• Assaig, Ciències Socials i Humanitats: El Sueño de dos Mártires. Meditaciones sobre una guerra actual, Dardo Scavino

• Audiovisual: Zumzeig Cinecooperativa

• Ciències Experimentals i Tecnologia: Ignasi Ribas

• Ciències de la Terra i Ambientals: Marcos Fernández-Martínez, Jordi Sardans i Josep Peñuelas, per l’article “Global trends in carbon sinks and their relationships with CO2 and temperature”

• Ciències de la Vida: Eduard Batlle Gómez
  

• Circ: Rhumans

• Cultura Popular i Tradicional: Germandat de Trabucaires, Geganters i Grallers a Sant Andreu de Palomar

• Dansa: Salva Sanchis, per la presentació de l’obra Radical Light

• Disseny: col·lecció Level del joier Marc Monzó

• Educació: Coeducacció

• Literatura Castellana: Mario Cuenca Sandoval

• Literatura Catalana: Els límits del Quim Porta de Josep Pedrals

• Mitjans de Comunicació: dossier “La guerra bruta de l’aigua”

• Música: Rosalía

• Teatre: Jordi Prat i Coll

• Traducció en Llengua Catalana: Austerlitz, de W.G. Sebald

Imatges dels premiats: https://eicub.net/share/service/publicSite?node=workspace://SpacesStore/29ac56e7-3bd8-4336-bda1-86d9eac97e1a

Més informació: www.barcelona.cat/premisciutatbcn

Reforesting and managing ecosystems have been proposed as ways to mitigate global warming and offset anthropogenic carbon emissions. Photo by: Pixabay

 

Natural solutions have been proposed to stop and reverse the steady rise in CO2 in the atmosphere. Theses natural solutions nclude planting a tree in our back yard or buying carbon credits, that finance the planting of millions of trees and restoring ecosystems

In a new study in the journal Global Change Biology authors provide their perspective on how well plants and ecosystems sequester carbon. Their analyses is based on 1163 site-years of direct eddy covariance measurements of gross and net carbon fluxes from 155 sites across the globe. The ability of individual plants and ecosystems to mine carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as defined by rates and cumulative amounts, are limited by laws of physics and ecological principles. “Consequently, the rates and amount of net carbon uptake are slow and low compared to the rates and amounts of carbon dioxide we release by fossil fuels combustion. Furthermore, managing ecosystems to sequester carbon can also cause unintended consequences to arise”, said Prof. Dennis Baldocchi from University of California, Berkeley.

In this opinion piece, authors articulate a series of key take-home points:

– First, the potential amount of carbon an ecosystem can assimilate on an annual basis scales with absorbed sunlight, which varies with latitude, leaf area index and available water.

– Second, efforts to improve photosynthesis will come with the cost of more respiration.

– Third, the rates and amount of net carbon uptake are relatively slow and low, compared to the rates and amounts and rates of carbon dioxide we release by fossil fuels combustion.

– Fourth, huge amounts of land area for ecosystems will be needed to be an effective carbon sink to mitigate anthropogenic carbon emissions.

– Fifth, the effectiveness of using this land as a carbon sink will depend on its ability to remain as a permanent carbon sink.

– Sixth, converting land to forests or wetlands may have unintended costs that warm the local climate, such a changing albedo and soil moisture, increasing surface roughness or releasing other greenhouse gases.

Authors point out that they do not argue that planting forests and deep-rooted perennial grasslands or restoring peatlands and wetlands should not be part of the climate mitigation portfolio. Prof. Penuelas from CREAF-CSIC Barcelona argues that “Given the urgency of reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the relatively low potential of converting solar energy to stored carbon, the vast amount of land needed to be significant carbon sinks and the risk for unintended consequences, we want the reader to consider that political capital and resources may be better aimed towards more effective and immediate solutions, like reducing and eliminating carbon emissions that are associated with fossil fuel combustion”.

 

Reference: Baldocchi, D., Peñuelas, J. 2019. The Physics and Ecology of Mining Carbon Dioxide from the Atmosphere by Ecosystems. Global Change Biology 2019

The Barcelona City Councial honoured Dr. Marcos Fernández-Martínez, Dr. Jordi Sardans and Prof Josep Peñuelas with the Premis Ciutat de Barcelona 2018, in the category of Experimental and Earth Sciences.

The jury formed by Isabel Cacho (president), Xavier Rodó, Francisco J. Doblas, Jaume Terradas and Frederic Bartomeus have awarded them for their work “Global trends in carbon sinks and their relationships with CO2 and temperature” publicated in the Nature  Climate Change journal.

 

 

 

Plant phenology (collective term of the timing of plant flowering, leaf emergence, growth stages and senescence) is a sensitive indicator of climate change and plays an important role in regulating carbon uptake by plants. Previous studies based on both observations and model simulations, have found that air temperature has a positive influence on the onset of plant growth in the Northern Hemisphere; for example, higher spring temperature triggers earlier leaf-out and flowering dates and hence extends the growing season. These studies have focused on spring leaf-out by daytime temperature and the onset of snow-melt time, but the drivers controlling leaf senescence date (LSD) in autumn remain largely unknown.

In a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change authors used long-term ground phenological records (14,536 time series since the 1900s) and satellite greenness observations dating back to the 1980s. They showed that rising pre-season maximum daytime (Tday) and minimum night-time (Tnight) temperatures had contrasting effects on the timing of autumn LSD in the Northern Hemisphere (> 20° N).

If higher Tday leads to an earlier or later LSD, an increase in Tnight systematically drives LSD to occur oppositely. Contrasting impacts of daytime and night-time warming on drought stress may be the underlying mechanism. “Our LSD model considering these opposite effects improved autumn phenology modelling and predicted an overall earlier autumn LSD by the end of this century compared with traditional projections”, said Dr. Chaoyang Wu from the Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation and the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.

“These results challenge the notion of prolonged growth under higher autumn temperatures, suggesting instead that leaf senescence in the Northern Hemisphere could begin earlier than currently expected, and may be a potentially unrecognized positive feedback to climate change and consequently a weakening in the capability of terrestrial carbon uptake”, said Prof. Josep Peñuelas from CREAF-CSIC Barcelona.

Reference: Wu, C, Wang, X., Wang, H., Ciais, P., Peñuelas, J., Myneni, R.B., Desai, A.R., Gough, C.M., Gonsamo, A., Black, A.T., Jassal, R.S., Ju, W., Yuan, W., Fu, Y., Shen, M., Li, S., Liu, R., Chen, J.M., Ge, Q. 2018. Contrasting responses of autumn-leaf senescence to daytime and night-time warming. Nature Climate Change 8, 1092-1096, doi: 10.1038/s41558-018-0346-z

The British Ecological Society (BES) honoured Prof. Josep Peñuelas with the 2018 Marsh Award for Climate Change Research. The BES annual awards honour exceptional ecologists across all career stages, recognising their contributions to advancing and communicating ecological knowledge.

BES recognises Prof. Peñuelas from the National Research Council of Spain (CSIC) for his research on the biological impacts of climate change has led to the discovery of ecophysiological mechanisms linked to carbon and oxygen use that help to explain plant species distribution.

The full list of 2018 BES award and prize winners is as follows:

• Honorary Membership: Professor Andrew Watkinson from the University of East Anglia
  Honorary membership is the highest honour the BES gives, recognising exceptional contributions at international level to the generation, communication and promotion of ecological knowledge and solutions. Other people that currently hold Honorary Membership include Sir David Attenborough, Dame Georgina Mace, Sir Charles Godfray and Sir John Lawton.

• Marsh Award for Ecology: Professor Katherine Willis, University of Oxford
  Provided by the Marsh Christian Trust and administered by the BES, this is awarded for a current research record which is having a significant impact on the development of the science of ecology or its application.

• Marsh Award for Climate Change Research: Professor Josep Peñuelas, National Research Council of Spain (CSIC)
  Provided by the Marsh Christian Trust and administered by the BES, this is awarded for an outstanding contribution to climate change research.

• Marsh Award for Ecologists in Africa: Dr Chabi Adéyèmi Marc Sylvestre Djagoun, University of Abomey-Calavi
  Provided by the Marsh Christian Trust and administered by the BES, this is awarded for an outstanding current research record, largely completed in Africa, which is having a significant impact on the development of the science of ecology or its application.

• Founders’ Prize: Professor Gabriel Yvon-Durocher, University of Exeter
  The BES Founders’ Prize commemorates the enthusiasm and vision of the Society’s founders. It is awarded to an early-career ecologist who is starting to make a significant contribution to the science of ecology.

• BES Award: Dr Emma Sayer, Lancaster University
  The BES Award is made in recognition of exceptional voluntary service to the Society and its community.

• Ecological Engagement Award: Dr Ruth Waters, Natural England
  This award recognises an ecologist who has bridged the gap between ecology and the public.

• Equality and Diversity Champion: Dr Rosie Trevelyan, Tropical Biology Association
  This award recognises an individual or group who has made innovative contributions to enhancing the practice of equality and diversity in the ecological community.

 

The winners had been presented with their prizes during a ceremony held on December 18th at the Society’s annual conference.