Climate change - so what?

An interesting collection of papers has recently been published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A (London) answering the questions of will the world get over 4 degrees C warmer and so what if it does... 

Four degrees and beyond: the potential for a global temperature increase of four degrees and its implications

It is based around papers given at a conference in 2009 that asked '(i) how probable a warming of four degrees or higher might be, (ii) what the consequences of such a warming might be for ecosystems and society, (iii) how to adapt to such large changes, and (iv) how to keep the risk of high-end climate change as low as possible.'

Here are some views from a group of Aussie climate scientists!

Science at the Shine Dome

A couple of weeks ago I was really honored to be nominated for sponsorship to attend Science at the Shine Dome, as an Early Career Researcher.  Science at the Shine Dome is the annual meeting of the Australian Academy of Sciences (the Australian equivalent of the Royal Academy in the UK).  Hearing fellows of the academy and awardees give fantastic talks about their research was very inspiring and their enthusiasm for science was infectious.

Here is a photo of me (in a very obvious green jumper!) - Firstly with the other 'travel awardees' and then with all the Early Career researchers in front of the Shine Dome.  Photo credit and copyright to Mark Graham photography. 

The symposium on Population Challenges to Sustainability was a very interesting one, as there are of course many angles on that complex debate.  The programme for the day was really well thought out and was not all ‘doom’ at all, although there were quite a few sobering statistics.  There was a thought provoking talk on urban design for higher density living as a viable way to cope with increasing populations in Australia and to make our cities more ‘efficient’, although this would obviously imply a lifestyle change for many Australians.    There were also many suggestions on how we might measure impacts and manage population increase in Australia, including Tim Flannery’s suggestion to set up an advisory board to evaluate potential impacts against various criteria to set population ‘limits’.  A number of talks also questioned the emphasis on justifying population increase to increase total GDP, when GDP per capita and other indices may be a better measure of ‘wealth’ – and there appears to be little influence of population increase on GDP per capita.  The question was also raised as to whether economists can’t begin to think about how a contracting economy may be viable rather than always focusing on increasing GDP.    Issues of health and education were also covered, including a talk by Marie Stopes charity which appears to have been successful in some developing countries to reduce population increase through giving women greater access to contraceptives and thus freedom of choice.

CSIRO was well represented at the symposium with talks on population pressure on water resources and agriculture (food security), highlighting the challenges of climate change as well as increasing populations.  I was also pleased to meet Professor Michael Barber at the dinner, who is a fellow of the academy and former CSIRO executive. 

Here I am (on the right) dressed up for the wonderful black-tie dinner at the Museum of Australia (photo copyright: Mark Graham Photography). The speaker at the dinner was Professor Robert, Lord May of Oxford, who was very entertaining but also made some profound comments in relation to the theme of sustainability and population increase. 

May review for F1000

At last, a paper about cane toads!  Well, not quite, but this study on amphibians is an interesting one, as the literature on establishment success is somewhat swamped by plant studies.  Therefore, this study, which uses a meta-analysis of amphibian populations across the globe to examine Darwin's Naturalization hypothesis, is interesting and refreshing.

Establishment success of introduced amphibians increases in the presence of congeneric species.

R Tingley, BL Phillips, R Shine Am Nat 2011 Mar 177 3:382-8 DOI 10.1086/658342

Our Review: Parry H, Lonsdale M: 2011. F1000.com/10431957

When it comes to testing ecological theories of invasion processes, plants have often been the organism of choice. So, to see amphibians being used to test Darwin’s naturalization hypothesis, as in this paper, is exciting. 

A popular review

I was really pleased to be told by F1000 that our April review has proved very popular on their site, it was in the top 5% in terms of user accesses for 2 weeks following its publication.  This highlights the importance to the scientific community of the research question 'What are the determinants of success in invasive species?'

Mapping threatened ecosystems in Australia

This is an interesting map, recently published as part of the Bioscience article 'The Spatial Distribution of Threats to Species in Australia', Evans et al., BioScience, 61(4):281-289. 2011.

Figure 3: The distribution of the predominant threats to biodiversity across Australia. The “predominant threat” is the threat affecting the greatest number of species in each subcatchment. Where two or more threats affect an equivalent number of species, we consider there to be no predominant threat occurring in these subcatchments, displayed here in shades of gray.
Darker colors indicate a larger overall number of threats occurring in the subcatchment. White indicates areas where no threatened species occur.

 This is quite a novel way to highlight the range of threats to Australian ecosystems, putting them in a spatial context.  The article argues that the use of such a spatial and visual analysis will aid mitigation efforts and help identify location-specific threats.

Mother Nature's Melting Pot?!

The latest 'pro-invasive' article I've come across was from reading this post on my colleague Shuang's blog, linking to an article in the New York Times "Mother Nature's Melting Pot".  This article makes a pretty outrageous link (imho) between alien plant and animal species and human immigrants.  Hang on, Homo sapiens are a single species last time I checked, so perhaps its not too surprising we can live happily alongside one another - though then again, perhaps we could take a few lessons from ecology in that respect!

While the vanguard of the anti-immigrant crusade is found among the likes of the Minutemen and the Tea Party, the native species movement is led by environmentalists, conservationists and gardeners. Despite cultural and political differences, both are motivated — in Margaret Thatcher’s infamous phrase — by the fear of being swamped by aliens.

April review for F1000

This month we have found some good papers.  We decided to first review a paper that is very much in Mark's field of interest - what factors determine species invasion success.  This paper provides some evidence as to whether greater phenotypic plasticity of invasives is important. 


 AM Davidson, M Jennions, AB Nicotra (2011) Do invasive species show higher phenotypic plasticity than native species and, if so, is it adaptive? A meta-analysis. Ecol Lett 2011 Apr 14 4:419-31
DOI 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2011.01596.x

Our Review: Parry H, Lonsdale M: 2011. F1000.com/9268957 
Another review of this paper is also available at the above link, by Hao Wang and Mark Lewis of the University of Alberta, Canada. 


What are the determinants of success in invasive species? Tonnes of wood pulp have been expended in proposing predictors of invasion success, such as morphology, taxonomic relatedness and propagule pressure, which might help us to screen out dangerous species before it is too late.