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    Potential effects of climate change on inundation patterns in the Amazon Basin
    (Chichester : John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2013) Langerwisch, F.; Rost, S.; Gerten, D.; Poulter, B.; Rammig, A.; Cramer, W.
    Floodplain forests, namely the Várzea and Igapó, cover an area of more than 97 000 km2. A key factor for their function and diversity is annual flooding. Increasing air temperature and higher precipitation variability caused by climate change are expected to shift the flooding regime during this century, and thereby impact floodplain ecosystems, their biodiversity and riverine ecosystem services. To assess the effects of climate change on the flooding regime, we use the Dynamic Global Vegetation and Hydrology Model LPJmL, enhanced by a scheme that realistically simulates monthly flooded area. Simulation results of discharge and inundation under contemporary conditions compare well against site-level measurements and observations. The changes of calculated inundation duration and area under climate change projections from 24 IPCC AR4 climate models differ regionally towards the end of the 21st century. In all, 70% of the 24 climate projections agree on an increase of flooded area in about one third of the basin. Inundation duration increases dramatically by on average three months in western and around one month in eastern Amazonia. The time of high- and low-water peak shifts by up to three months. Additionally, we find a decrease in the number of extremely dry years and in the probability of the occurrence of three consecutive extremely dry years. The total number of extremely wet years does not change drastically but the probability of three consecutive extremely wet years decreases by up to 30% in the east and increases by up to 25% in the west. These changes implicate significant shifts in regional vegetation and climate, and will dramatically alter carbon and water cycles.
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    Global data on earthworm abundance, biomass, diversity and corresponding environmental properties
    (London : Nature Publ. Group, 2021) Phillips, Helen R. P.; Bach, Elizabeth M.; Bartz, Marie L. C.; Bennett, Joanne M.; Beugnon, Rémy; Briones, Maria J. I.; Brown, George G.; Ferlian, Olga; Gongalsky, Konstantin B.; Guerra, Carlos A.; König-Ries, Birgitta; López-Hernández, Danilo; Loss, Scott R.; Marichal, Raphael; Matula, Radim; Minamiya, Yukio; Moos, Jan Hendrik; Moreno, Gerardo; Morón-Ríos, Alejandro; Motohiro, Hasegawa; Muys, Bart; Krebs, Julia J.; Neirynck, Johan; Norgrove, Lindsey; Novo, Marta; Nuutinen, Visa; Nuzzo, Victoria; Mujeeb Rahman, P.; Pansu, Johan; Paudel, Shishir; Pérès, Guénola; Pérez-Camacho, Lorenzo; Orgiazzi, Alberto; Ponge, Jean-François; Prietzel, Jörg; Rapoport, Irina B.; Rashid, Muhammad Imtiaz; Rebollo, Salvador; Rodríguez, Miguel Á.; Roth, Alexander M.; Rousseau, Guillaume X.; Rozen, Anna; Sayad, Ehsan; Ramirez, Kelly S.; van Schaik, Loes; Scharenbroch, Bryant; Schirrmann, Michael; Schmidt, Olaf; Schröder, Boris; Seeber, Julia; Shashkov, Maxim P.; Singh, Jaswinder; Smith, Sandy M.; Steinwandter, Michael; Russell, David J.; Szlavecz, Katalin; Talavera, José Antonio; Trigo, Dolores; Tsukamoto, Jiro; Uribe-López, Sheila; de Valença, Anne W.; Virto, Iñigo; Wackett, Adrian A.; Warren, Matthew W.; Webster, Emily R.; Schwarz, Benjamin; Wehr, Nathaniel H.; Whalen, Joann K.; Wironen, Michael B.; Wolters, Volkmar; Wu, Pengfei; Zenkova, Irina V.; Zhang, Weixin; Cameron, Erin K.; Eisenhauer, Nico; Wall, Diana H.; Brose, Ulrich; Decaëns, Thibaud; Lavelle, Patrick; Loreau, Michel; Mathieu, Jérôme; Mulder, Christian; van der Putten, Wim H.; Rillig, Matthias C.; Thakur, Madhav P.; de Vries, Franciska T.; Wardle, David A.; Ammer, Christian; Ammer, Sabine; Arai, Miwa; Ayuke, Fredrick O.; Baker, Geoff H.; Baretta, Dilmar; Barkusky, Dietmar; Beauséjour, Robin; Bedano, Jose C.; Birkhofer, Klaus; Blanchart, Eric; Blossey, Bernd; Bolger, Thomas; Bradley, Robert L.; Brossard, Michel; Burtis, James C.; Capowiez, Yvan; Cavagnaro, Timothy R.; Choi, Amy; Clause, Julia; Cluzeau, Daniel; Coors, Anja; Crotty, Felicity V.; Crumsey, Jasmine M.; Dávalos, Andrea; Cosín, Darío J. Díaz; Dobson, Annise M.; Domínguez, Anahí; Duhour, Andrés Esteban; van Eekeren, Nick; Emmerling, Christoph; Falco, Liliana B.; Fernández, Rosa; Fonte, Steven J.; Fragoso, Carlos; Franco, André L. C.; Fusilero, Abegail; Geraskina, Anna P.; Gholami, Shaieste; González, Grizelle; Gundale, Michael J.; López, Mónica Gutiérrez; Hackenberger, Branimir K.; Hackenberger, Davorka K.; Hernández, Luis M.; Hirth, Jeff R.; Hishi, Takuo; Holdsworth, Andrew R.; Holmstrup, Martin; Hopfensperger, Kristine N.; Lwanga, Esperanza Huerta; Huhta, Veikko; Hurisso, Tunsisa T.; Iannone, Basil V.; Iordache, Madalina; Irmler, Ulrich; Ivask, Mari; Jesús, Juan B.; Johnson-Maynard, Jodi L.; Joschko, Monika; Kaneko, Nobuhiro; Kanianska, Radoslava; Keith, Aidan M.; Kernecker, Maria L.; Koné, Armand W.; Kooch, Yahya; Kukkonen, Sanna T.; Lalthanzara, H.; Lammel, Daniel R.; Lebedev, Iurii M.; Le Cadre, Edith; Lincoln, Noa K.
    Earthworms are an important soil taxon as ecosystem engineers, providing a variety of crucial ecosystem functions and services. Little is known about their diversity and distribution at large spatial scales, despite the availability of considerable amounts of local-scale data. Earthworm diversity data, obtained from the primary literature or provided directly by authors, were collated with information on site locations, including coordinates, habitat cover, and soil properties. Datasets were required, at a minimum, to include abundance or biomass of earthworms at a site. Where possible, site-level species lists were included, as well as the abundance and biomass of individual species and ecological groups. This global dataset contains 10,840 sites, with 184 species, from 60 countries and all continents except Antarctica. The data were obtained from 182 published articles, published between 1973 and 2017, and 17 unpublished datasets. Amalgamating data into a single global database will assist researchers in investigating and answering a wide variety of pressing questions, for example, jointly assessing aboveground and belowground biodiversity distributions and drivers of biodiversity change.
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    The challenges of applying planetary boundaries as a basis for strategic decision-making in companies with global supply chains
    (Basel : MDPI AG, 2017) Clift, R.; Sim, S.; King, H.; Chenoweth, J.L.; Christie, I.; Clavreul, J.; Mueller, C.; Posthuma, L.; Boulay, A.-M.; Chaplin-Kramer, R.; Chatterton, J.; DeClerck, F.; Druckman, A.; France, C.; Franco, A.; Gerten, D.; Goedkoop, M.; Hauschild, M.Z.; Huijbregts, M.A.J.; Koellner, T.; Lambin, E.F.; Lee, J.; Mair, S.; Marshall, S.; McLachlan, M.S.; Milà i Canals, L.; Mitchell, C.; Price, E.; Rockström, J.; Suckling, J.; Murphy, R.
    The Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework represents a significant advance in specifying the ecological constraints on human development. However, to enable decision-makers in business and public policy to respect these constraints in strategic planning, the PB framework needs to be developed to generate practical tools. With this objective in mind, we analyse the recent literature and highlight three major scientific and technical challenges in operationalizing the PB approach in decision-making: first, identification of thresholds or boundaries with associated metrics for different geographical scales; second, the need to frame approaches to allocate fair shares in the 'safe operating space' bounded by the PBs across the value chain and; third, the need for international bodies to co-ordinate the implementation of the measures needed to respect the Planetary Boundaries. For the first two of these challenges, we consider how they might be addressed for four PBs: climate change, freshwater use, biosphere integrity and chemical pollution and other novel entities. Four key opportunities are identified: (1) development of a common system of metrics that can be applied consistently at and across different scales; (2) setting 'distance from boundary' measures that can be applied at different scales; (3) development of global, preferably open-source, databases and models; and (4) advancing understanding of the interactions between the different PBs. Addressing the scientific and technical challenges in operationalizing the planetary boundaries needs be complemented with progress in addressing the equity and ethical issues in allocating the safe operating space between companies and sectors.