Tag: nature

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Planning for a green future: How we can synergistically mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss

“Green future”, “Green initiatives”, “Green energy”

All references to the color green are impossible to avoid if we want to preserve or improve the environment. It is clear that “going green” is in, but which shade of green should we look at? There is the ‘bright electric green’, commonly posed on renewable energy advertisements and infographics. There is also the ‘deep forest green’ often pledged in biodiversity conservation campaigns. However, the question is, can we generate an environmental plan that actually delivers an appealing blend of both ‘electric’ and ‘deep forest’ green? 

In our recent work, we set out to determine what the optimal shade of green for Ireland’s future is. Like many countries, Ireland recognizes the need to urgently transition to a low-carbon economy to avoid the devastating impacts of unimpeded climate change. To meet our decarbonisation goals, Ireland has developed a Climate Action Plan 1. The goal of the Climate Action Plan is to achieve a net zero carbon energy system for Irish society by 2050. Specific actions include increasing the amount of electricity generated from renewable sources from 30% to 80% by 2030, establishing 8,000 hectares of newly planted trees per year, and funding the restoration and rehabilitation of peatlands. So it seems that the solution is quite straightforward – convert all current land uses to renewable energy infrastructure, new forests, and peatlands. Problem solved?!

Not so fast… In addition to the climate crisis, we are also facing an equally urgent biodiversity crisis. These two green problems can’t be solved independently. The biodiversity and climate crises are entwined in a complex system of feedbacks, with biodiversity part of the Earth system regulating climate, and climate in turn determining biodiversity patterns and trajectories. Ireland is a trailblazer in acknowledging that a synergistic solution is needed, and in May 2019, became the 2nd country worldwide to declare a climate and biodiversity emergency (Dáil Éireann, 2019). However, recognizing that climate and biodiversity require a coordinated response is only a first step. Implementation is going to be far more complicated. We need a plan, and we need it fast. 

To come up with the plan that would be the best for both climate and biodiversity, we went through the major goals of the Climate Action Plan and reviewed the scientific literature to determine how to meet those objectives in the most biodiversity friendly way possible. We identified the major threats that climate actions, such as increased renewable energy infrastructure, could impose on biodiversity (Figure 1) 2.

Figure 1. Mechanisms for climate actions which impact biodiversity. We outline major mechanisms that could impact biodiversity during the three primary life stages of renewable energy facilities: construction, operation, and decommissioning. From Gorman et al, 2023.

Along the way, we also found that many of the proposed climate actions can be implemented in ways that don’t harm biodiversity, but actually promote biodiversity: our “win-wins”. For Ireland, these include increasing offshore wind capacity, rehabilitating natural areas surrounding onshore wind turbines and limiting the development of solar photovoltaics to where humans have already erected structures, the so-called “built” environment (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Some examples of Ireland’s 2 “win-wins” for climate action and promoting biodiversity.

Ultimately, biodiversity-friendly renewable energy can be achieved by prioritizing renewables that are the least damaging and ensuring that infrastructure development is carried out as sensitively as possible in order to protect, restore, and enhance biodiversity. This could look different depending on where in the environment we are talking about, which is why choosing an appropriate site for each method is critical – we need a plan! 

We hope that this work can form the basis for that plan for Ireland and stimulate broader discussions on what this looks like for other countries. By synergistically mitigating both our climate and biodiversity crises, we can ensure that Ireland’s future is Emerald Green. 

About the author: Courtney Gorman is a postdoctoral researcher and project manager for the Nature+Energy project at Trinity College Dublin. She has a PhD in Biology from the University of Konstanz in Germany.

References:

1. Government of Ireland. Climate Action Plan. https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/ccb2e0-the-climate-action-plan-2019/ (2021).

2. Gorman, C. E. et al. Reconciling climate action with the need for biodiversity protection, restoration and rehabilitation. Science of The Total Environment 857, 159316 (2023).

Blog amended from first publication on Campus Buzz.

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The 2020 EcoEvo Hall of Fame

At the start of each year we ask the EcoEvo contributors to share their favourite scientific publications from the past year and why they found them interesting, inspiring, or otherwise worthy of inclusion in the Hall of Fame. Keeping with tradition, here are the EcoEvo Hall of Fame entries for 2020! And if you enjoy reading about our favourite papers from 2020, remember you can also check out our favourites from 2017, 2018 and 2019, too!

Chosen by Andrew Neill

Read the full People and Nature paper here.

I really enjoyed this paper because it tackles a really difficult topic at the intersection of poverty, human rights, development, conservation, and sustainability. It is important to remember that conservation will never meet its objectives without considering how people depend on nature for their needs and livelihoods. The areas of richest biological diversity (and therefore conservation potential) are usually in developing countries with communities experiencing poverty. This paper collects responses from conservation practitioners to examine their viewpoints on poverty in the context of their work. 

F I G U R E 3. Comparison of discourses on five key dimensions of difference. Discourses are compared on a simple ordinal scale, and accordingly should only be interpreted in relative positions to one another (for instance, D3 is more ecocentric than D1).
© 2020 The Authors. People and Nature published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society. The article is distributed under the terms of the CC-BY 4 license.

They found some areas of agreement such as the poorest people should not be expected to shoulder the costs of preserving a global public good (the conservation of biodiversity). However, they also identify differences between responses: Is the focus placed on meeting the needs of people or more closely aligned with the “do no harm” principle? Is poverty a driver of nature’s decline, or is it the over-consumption that drives environmental degradation? This paper was a great opportunity to question my own views on these very complex ideas and to appreciate the wide diversity of thought going on across the world of conservation. 

Fisher, J.A., Dhungana, H., Duffy, J., He, J., Inturias, M., Lehmann, I., Martin, A., Mwayafu, D.M., Rodríguez, I. and Schneider, H. (2020). Conservationists’ perspectives on poverty: An empirical study. People and Nature, 2 (3), pp.678-692.

Chosen by Fionn Ó Marcaigh

Read the full Nature Communications paper here.

This paper is based on a truly colossal undertaking: to collect their data on dispersal ability, Sheard et al. measured the wings of 10,338 bird species, i.e. 99% of all bird species on Earth. They used the Hand-Wing Index, a measure that correlates with aspect ratio and basically tells you how long and pointed the bird’s wing is. The higher this number (i.e. the pointier the wing), the better the bird will be at dispersing and flying long distances.

a Diagram showing linear measurements used to calculate HWI taken on a standard museum study skin (secondary feathers shown in pale grey; primary feathers in dark grey). Wing length (Lw) is the distance from carpal joint to the tip of the longest primary feather; secondary length (S1) is the distance from carpal joint to the tip of the first secondary feather; Kipp’s distance (DK) is the difference between Lw and S1. b Open wing of a passerine bird showing how Lw and S1 are related to the wing’s span and width, and hence to its aspect ratio. c Because it is correlated with the aspect ratio, HWI is in theory positively associated with flight efficiency and key aspects of dispersal ability, including dispersal distance and gap-crossing ability.
© The Author(s) 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4 license.

This is important for evolution, as the more birds that are able to fly between distant populations the more gene flow there will be and the less likely the populations are to diverge. Sheard et al. found important links between dispersal ability and geography and ecology, as tropical and territorial birds, had lower Hand-Wing Indices and migratory species had higher ones. It’s fascinating to see how these traits affect the ability of a species to move around, which in turn dictates where that species will be found in the world. The authors have made this incredible dataset freely available and it is sure to inform new insights into bird ecology and evolution for years to come.

Sheard C., Neate-Clegg M. H. C., Alioravainen N., Jones S. E. I., Vincent C., MacGregor H. E. A., Bregman T. P., Claramunt  S. & Tobias J. A. (2020) Ecological drivers of global gradients in avian dispersal inferred from wing morphology. Nature Communications, 11 (2463).

Chosen by Sam Ross

Read the full Science paper here.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been extremely challenging for many, so it was great to see some excellent science coming from the ‘natural experiment’ offered by COVID-19 movement restrictions. The authors show that during the COVID-19 restrictions anthropogenic noise (from vehicles etc.) in the San Francisco Bay Area reached a 70-year low, characteristic of the mid-1950s. They use a long-term dataset of White-Crowned Sparrow recordings to show that during the COVID-19 lockdown, when human noise pollution was minimal, Sparrows exploited the emptied acoustic space (usually occupied by human-related noise) by producing higher-performance songs at lower amplitudes, to maximise song distance. The authors highlight the rapidity with which behavioural traits (song characteristics) adapted to changes in human activity, suggesting incredible plasticity and potential resilience to pervasive anthropogenic pressures like noise pollution. To me, this study is a perfect example of nature’s resilience, and also on finding opportunity from tragedy (research made possible by a global pandemic).

Derryberry E.P., Phillips J.N., Derryberry G.E., Blum M.J., Luther D. (2020). Singing in a silent spring: Birds respond to a half-century soundscape reversion during the COVID-19 shutdown. Science, 370, 575-579.

Chosen by Jenny Bortoluzzi

Read the full Marine Policy paper here.

This paper looked at the human behavioural responses to a blanket ban on thresher shark fisheries in Sri Lanka and fisher’s perceptions of different aspects of the ban. A blanket ban means a complete prohibition on exploitation of a species, and Thresher sharks are considered to be the most vulnerable species of pelagic sharks. A blanket ban might therefore seem like a straightforward and easy conservation measure to protect them. But this study looked at the human impact behind such a drastic policy decision. A ban like this has consequences for the livelihoods of fishers – particularly smaller fishermen who rely highly on thresher shark landings to provide for their families. The study clearly shows the disparity in the impact this conservation policy has had between fishers who rely on these catches to survive and those for whom they are not the primary catch.

The biggest message I took from this paper is how important it is that human lives are taken into account when making conservation decisions; and more importantly that scientists and policymakers need to involve communities early on in the process, communicate better and work together, not against each other if we want conservation to be effective – and supported. This is a message I think more scientists need to hear and integrate into their work and one I hope to take forward in my future career.

Collins C., Letessier T. B., Broderick A., Wijesundara I., Nuno A. (2020). Using perceptions to examine human responses to blanket bans: The case of the thresher shark landing-ban in Sri Lanka. Marine Policy, 121 (104198).

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Nature and Wellbeing

A Long Read by Cian White

Photo by James Orr
Credit: James Orr

For anyone living in a city during a pandemic, the benefit of parks to your physical and mental health is obvious. There is space to properly social distance, space to meet up with friends, space to exercise or kick a ball around, benches to sit on, air to breathe, life to live. Then there is the life in the parks, the trees and shrubs and birds and insects, all the stuff that comes under the vague heading of greenspace or nature. So, to celebrate World Cities day and in the interest of public health, let us explore a very interesting area of research developing at the intersection of ecology and psychology: meaningful nature experiences.

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The 2019 EcoEvo Hall of Fame

Every year, contributors to the blog look back on their favourite papers of the previous year and tell us what it was about these publications that stuck in their mind so much. With a range of different topics and reasons, it’s always great to see what each of us thinks makes for a great paper! Find out what we elected as our favourite papers in 2018 and 2017, and read on for this year’s entries:

Perrot-Minnot, M. J., Guyonnet, E., Bollache, L., & Lagrue, C. (2019). Differential patterns of definitive host use by two fish acanthocephalans occurring in sympatry: Pomphorhynchus laevis and Pomphorhynchus tereticollis. International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife, 8, 135-144.

Chosen by Paula Tierney

Read the full International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife paper here

https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S2213224418300671-fx1_lrg.jpg
Graphical abstract from paper

Sometimes a paper doesn’t have to make huge waves in the broader ecology world to be a great paper and sometimes a paper comes along at just the right time to answer the questions you need answering. Perrot-Minnot et al. 2019 did both for me this year. Since the taxonomic revision of the acanthocephalan parasite Pomphorhychus laevis by Špakulová et al in 2011 resurrected the closely-related species Pomphorhynchus tereticollis, the systematics of the genus in Europe has been something of a taxonomic dumpster fire. It also left one of my PhD chapters with a bit of an identity crisis since,

Continue reading “The 2019 EcoEvo Hall of Fame”
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One Thing For Nature

If you could do one thing for nature, what would it be?

Invent a new way of automatically cataloguing species? Put location trackers on every single individual of a threatened animal population? Start collecting DNA sequences of threatened species so we can de-extinct them, Jurassic Park style?

The answers I got to this question when I posed it to our Tuesday lunchtime group of PhD students, researchers, and academics, was far less sci-fi and much more pragmatic.

Continue reading “One Thing For Nature”
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Looking beyond mean trends of environmental change

During my first week in Dublin, Ireland, I was more shocked by the countless sunny-rainy shifts within one single day than its natural beauty, although I had been warned of its fickle weather in advance. That was something totally new to me. Born and raised in a small inland town in North China, I had grown accustomed to taking for granted that a whole sunny day could be prophesised by bright morning sunlight through the window. Then I started to imagine that, if fitting a curve to the weather, the curve of my birth village would surely be much smoother than Dublin, even though the former has four much more distinct seasons. But, at that moment, I had neither realized that this thought actually reflected the difference in the temporal autocorrelation of environmental conditions in the two places nor how this could be linked to the dynamics and stability of ecosystems.

Read Marvin’s full post on the Nature Ecology & Evolution blog.

This post is based on the paper Yang et al. (2019) ‘The predictability of ecological stability in a noisy world.’ Nature Ecology & Evolution

Header photo by Brocken Inaglory on Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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What has nature ever done for us?

dogs watching tvAnti-environmentalists and apathists often ask why bother to conserve nature – what does it do for us? Cue enthusiastic green arm-waving and heavy sighs from environmental scientists and ecologists who have faced this attitude their entire careers.

Nature is undeniably important for the human race – we wouldn’t be here without plants fixing the sun’s energy into carbohydrates and producing oxygen as a by-product, we wouldn’t be able to grow any food to eat without the myriad of organisms which create and maintain the soil, and exposure to nature has numerous psychological and physical benefits for our health. And yet, it is not valued in political decision-making. The environment, particularly the living biological part of it, is a “cross-cutting” issue which means it’s ignored by most government departments, including those that should be valuing it the most (e.g. Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government; Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine; Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources). This is because most decision-making is driving by economics.

International momentum has been building for governments, businesses and organisations to begin valuing nature. This doesn’t just mean putting a price on nature – it’s not all about price-tags – but valuing natural capital in the same way that any other capital (financial, human, built etc.) would be valued. And accounting for this capital in decision-making processes at all levels (from individuals up to government policy).

Some countries and individual corporations have made good progress with this (e.g. the UK has a Natural Capital Committee, Coca-Cola and Puma have famously adopted Natural Capital Accounting systems), but there has been little progress in Ireland, until now.

In April, the first Natural Capital Ireland Conference was held, which brought together academics, government representatives from national and local levels, government organisations, NGOs, business and finance and other stakeholders. The point of the meeting was to try and increase understanding of valuing nature nationally, and progress natural capital accounting at all levels.

The report from this conference is now available on the Natural Capital Ireland website (www.naturalcapitalireland.com) and will be launched at the EPA Environment Ireland conference. In addition, the EPA and NPWS have been working with the conference organising committee to create a national Natural Capital Forum.

Whether this will bump the natural environment up the political agenda, and increase people’s interest and enthusiasm for nature remains to be seen… But we need to keep trying to convince people that nature is important, and that not having it is more expensive and economically damaging.

Author: Jane Stout, stoutj[at]tcd.ie

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The ‘Natural’ World

What images come to mind when you think of a field ecologist? Do you see what I see? I see someone, probably in khaki shorts and a broad-brimmed hat,  walking through thick rainforest, listening to the calls of birds, waving off insects determined to find a patch of skin to bite, and smelling the exotic aromas of plants and animals living, dying and decaying.

You may well be thinking that this is an idealised image of a field ecologist and while it may have been true 50 years ago, it’s harder to imagine now. After all, every day we hear about habitat destruction and how mankind is damaging the natural environment. But I’d like to propose that even 50 years, or 100 years, or even 1000 years ago mankind was having an impact on the environment and this idea of the ‘natural’ world really needs rethinking.

Take, as an Irish example, the Burren. I visited this area for the first time a few weeks ago and was stunned by the rugged beauty of the place. It was sparsely populated, only a few sheep and cows (and the occasional donkey) provided evidence of any human presence in places; how much more ‘natural’ could one get? Plenty more, it turns out, as the entire landscape is the result of human impacts.

The entire area is littered with signs of prehistoric people, the most striking of which was the 5,000 year old Poulnabrone portal tomb. This tomb dominates a limestone pavement with a view that stretches for miles across to the sea. Yet reading the information boards it quickly became apparent that this was not the landscape in which the tomb was constructed. At that time the area was heavily forested with small clearings made by people to farm and build their homes. The tomb would most probably have been largely hidden from all but those who knew its location. Yet over the next few thousand years people cut down more and more trees to make use of the timber and to clear the way for more farmland. However, the trees were the only thing holding the thin soil in place and with the loss of the trees, the soil soon followed, until all that was left were patches of vegetation and entire hillsides of exposed limestone bedrock. That stunning ‘natural’ landscape is the result of ancient habitat destruction!

Poulnabrone tomb. Image by Sarah Hearne
Poulnabrone tomb. Image by Sarah Hearne

 

A similar story can be told across much of the world. New Zealand, adopted home of the hobbits, with its fields and rolling hills, was once almost entirely forest. Yet when the Maori reached the islands around a thousand years ago they proceeded to reduce the forest cover by almost half, and the European settlers reduced it by half again. In addition, the loss of so many endemic species also led to changes in the structure of the remaining forests, though precisely how is still being debated.

Ewers et al. (2006)

 

It’s the same the word over. Take, as a final example, Australia. The sixth largest country, the world’s largest island, yet it has only 0.33% of the world’s population. Surely humans can’t have had much of an impact there? Well, yes they can, particularly if you think that they are at least partly responsible for the loss of the megafauna. For more details on that I highly recommend Tim Flannery’s 1994 book ‘The Future Eaters’, with the teaser that I never knew that dung was so important to a properly functioning ecosystem! But even ignoring that, Aborigines had a long and close association with the land, heavily modifying environments through activities including the use of controlled burning.

I could go on (and on, and on) for every habitat on almost every continent, but it would get rather monotonous. My point is that when we look at the ‘natural’ word we rarely see something that’s never been touched by man however far into the ‘wilds’ we go. The ‘natural’ world has been modified, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically, for thousands of years as countless generations have struggled to survive and prosper.  Ecology, however much we like to think otherwise, always involves a human component. Sometimes the humans who made the impacts have long gone and the landscapes have become so normal and ‘natural’ its hard to think there was a time they were ever different. But if we are to understand the world we need to understand the historic impacts we have had, not just on climate, not just in towns and cities, but also on the ‘natural’ world.

Author

Sarah Hearne: hearnes[at]tcd.ie

@SarahVHearne

Image sources

Sarah Hearne

Ewers et al. (2006) Biological Conservation 113:312-325