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Heating up the Science Behind PLOS’ New Climate Change Collection

Satellite images of penguin colonies in the southern Ross Sea

From penguin colonies in Antarctica, to California birds and North Carolina bugs, this month PLOS ONE focuses on the far-reaching aspects of climate change. In conjunction with the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), PLOS ONE and PLOS Biology unrolled a new collection of 16 research articles, curated by PLOS ONE Academic Editor, Ben Bond-Lamberty. The collection, “Ecological Impact of Climate Change”, features many articles that made a splash in the media. Here are some of the highlights:

Spring flowers are blooming earlier now than they did in the past. In a recent study, researchers compared the average flowering time for native species in Massachusetts and Wisconsin to data recorded by notable American naturalists Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold. These native species have shown remarkable flowering shifts, especially during recent years: In 1865, Thoreau observed the highbush blueberry flowering in mid-May; in 2012, researchers observed this species flowering six weeks earlier in early April. For more about this study, visit National Geographic, NPR, and MSNBC.

Like spring flowers, corals also react to increasing temperatures, but to a much more ghostly effect. When pressured by unusually warm or polluted waters, corals shed the algae that enliven them with color, becoming white.

Tioman Island, Malaysia, Acropora colony

New research suggests that this phenomenon, known as coral bleaching and often fatal for coral colonies, may not be as devastating as expected: Coral colonies that survived previous coral bleaching were much more likely to rebound successfully the next time it occurred. An astounding 95% of Acropora, a coral species highly susceptible to bleaching, survived at a research site in Singapore in 2010. Read more about these tough coral taxa, in the New York Times blog.

Summer days are heating up in the city, too, and urban, tree-dwelling insects are thriving as a result. A recent PLOS ONE article reports that scale insects like Parthenolecanium quercifex are 13 times more numerous in the hottest parts of Raleigh, North Carolina, than in cooler, neighboring rural areas.

Scale Bugs CCBY Aug blog

And these scaly squatters don’t stop once they settle down. Researchers also found that urban scale insects were four times more abundant when placed in hot greenhouse conditions than rural scale insects in the same conditions. The Atlantic Cities and Discovery News have more on this and other urban insects studies.

As temperatures continue to rise, researchers in this PLOS ONE study integrated climate change threats with traditional conservation concerns by comparing the vulnerability of California’s birds in relation to the predicted effects of climate change over the coming years. Of the 29 threatened-bird taxa considered in the state of California, these researchers determined 21 of those 29 (72%) are considered vulnerable to climate change. Lucky for us and the birds who call those most vulnerable coastal environments home, the findings of this study can be used as an assessment tool to foster future conservation efforts. For more local and international coverage, check out KQED News and the Huffington Post.

Read Ben Bond-Lamberty’s overview of the Collection, learn how climate change may impact coffee plants, or more from the PLOS Blogs network. View the entire Collection here. For more news on PLOS ONE papers headlining in August, dive into our Media Tracking Project.

Citations:

Ellwood ER, Temple SA, Primack RB, Bradley NL, Davis CC (2013) Record-Breaking Early Flowering in the Eastern United States. PLoS ONE 8(1): e53788. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0053788

Guest JR, Baird AH, Maynard JA, Muttaqin E, Edwards AJ, et al. (2012) Contrasting Patterns of Coral Bleaching Susceptibility in 2010 Suggest an Adaptive Response to Thermal Stress. PLoS ONE 7(3): e33353. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033353

Meineke EK, Dunn RR, Sexton JO, Frank SD (2013) Urban Warming Drives Insect Pest Abundance on Street Trees. PLoS ONE 8(3): e59687. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0059687

Gardali T, Seavy NE, DiGaudio RT, Comrack LA (2012) A Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment of California’s At-Risk Birds. PLoS ONE 7(3): e29507. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0029507

Image 1: Satellite images of penguin colonies in the southern Ross Sea. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0060568

Image 2: Tioman Island, Malaysia, Acropora colony. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033353

Image 3: Ants and sapsuckers by John Tann

 

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