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User-recommended papers allows you to suggest a paper you would like to see on Climate Change. When these papers appear on our site, users may comment and vote on them. To recommend a paper please use this form. Please note that you cannot recommend a paper you have authored. The editors will reject any self-recommendations. All comments and recommendation are checked by the editors and may be edited prior to publication on the site.

• Biodiversity & Ecology

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  • From the Cover: Impacts of climate warming on terrestrial ectotherms across latitude

    • C. A. Deutsch, J. J. Tewksbury, R. B. Huey, K. S. Sheldon, C. K. Ghalambor, D. C. Haak, P. R. Martin
      Original article citation: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105," 6668 - 6672, (2008).

    • Categories: Climate Impacts and Biodiversity & Ecology
    • Recommended by : Anne Claflin on 05/07/2008 05:18PM GMT
      
      This is a well written paper that clearly illustrates the impact of seemingly small changes in temperatures on a large and diverse group of species. The fate of tropical insects has the potential to cause a cascade of impacts throughout the tropical ecosystem.
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  • Potential role of the ocean thermostat in determining regional differences in coral reef bleaching events

    • Joan A. Kleypas, Gokhan Danabasoglu, Janice M. Lough
      Original article citation: Geophys. Res. Lett. 35," (2008).

    • Categories: Ocean Sciences, Regional Climate, Climate Impacts, and Biodiversity & Ecology
    • Recommended by the Editor: Anna Barnett on 02/14/2008 03:39PM GMT
      
      A previously proposed 'ocean thermostat' in the Western Pacific Warm Pool seems to protect corals there from bleaching, says this paper from Kleypas et al.
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  • Bacterial carbon processing by generalist species in the coastal ocean

    • Xiaozhen Mou, Shulei Sun, Robert A. Edwards, Robert E. Hodson, Mary Ann Moran
      Original article citation: Nature 451," 708 - 711, (2008).

    • Categories: Biodiversity & Ecology and Ocean Sciences
    • Recommended by the Editor: Anna Barnett on 02/07/2008 04:32PM GMT
      
      Mou et al. examine how marine bacteria contribute to the ocean's carbon cycle using an experimental metagenomics approach. This allows them to analyze metabolic capabilities throughout the community of bacteria, rather than characterizing individual taxa.
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  • A climate-driven switch in plant nitrogen acquisition within tropical forest communities

    • B. Z. Houlton, D. M. Sigman, E. A. G. Schuur, L. O. Hedin
      Original article citation: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104," (2007).

    • Categories: Biodiversity & Ecology and Climate Impacts
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:21PM GMT
      
      This paper by Houlzon and aollegaues published last month in PNAS suggests that the physiological response of individual plant species will determine how the tropical forest community as whole responds to climate-driven changes in nitrogen avilaibility. Basically, they measured isotope natural abundances in a variety of plants with diverse growth strategies to show that they relied on a common source of inorganic nitrogen and that they changed their primary supply of nitrogen rapidly in response and in unison to changes in precipitation.
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  • Drought sensitivity shapes species distribution patterns in tropical forests

    • Bettina M. J. Engelbrecht, Liza S. Comita, Richard Condit, Thomas A. Kursar, Melvin T. Tyree, Benjamin L. Turner, Stephen P. Hubbell
      Original article citation: Nature 447," (2007).

    • Categories: Climate Impacts and Biodiversity & Ecology
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:21PM GMT
      
      This paper, by Bettina Engelbrecht of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and collegues, was published in Nature in early May. Based on a nice set of field experiments, the study suggests that changes in soil moisture availability caused by climate change, together with forest fragmentation, are likely to alter tropical species distributions, community structure and diversity in the future.
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  • Projected Impacts of Climate and Land-Use Change on the Global Diversity of Birds

    • Walter Jetz, David S. Wilcove, Andrew P. Dobson
      Original article citation: Plos Biol 5," (2007).

    • Categories: Biodiversity & Ecology and Climate Impacts
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:20PM GMT
      
      This recent paper by ecologist Walter Jetz and colleagues suggests that a combination of continuing climate change and land use change could be bad news for over 1,000 bird species worldwide. Over 50 species could potentially face future extinction, according to their study based on models created by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment(MEA) project.
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  • Airborne measurements indicate large methane emissions from the eastern Amazon basin

    • John B. Miller, Luciana V. Gatti, Monica T. S. d'Amelio, Andrew M. Crotwell, Edward J. Dlugokencky, Peter Bakwin, Paulo Artaxo, Pieter P. Tans
      Original article citation: Geophys. Res. Lett. 34," (2007).

    • Categories: Regional Climate and Biodiversity & Ecology
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:20PM GMT
      
      This paper by John B. Miller of NOAA and colleagues verifies that the eastern Amazon basin is emitting large quantities of the potent greenhouse gas methane. It suggests that scientists currently underestimate the tropics as a methane source.
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  • Combined climate and carbon-cycle effects of large-scale deforestation

    • G. Bala, K. Caldeira, M. Wickett, T. J. Phillips, D. B. Lobell, C. Delire, A. Mirin
      Original article citation: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104," (2007).

    • Categories: Biodiversity & Ecology and Mitigation
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:20PM GMT
      
      This paper, from last month which we covered as a research highlight, has some interesting implications. Bala and colleagues modelled the temperature up to 2100 in a deforested world compared with a regular forested world. They found that removal of forests at high latitudes would actually temper global warming, as more sunlight would be reflected. The authors urge against chopping down trees to mitigate climate change, however, owing to their many other benefits!
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  • Rapid and Recent Changes in Fungal Fruiting Patterns

    • A. C. Gange, E. G. Gange, T. H. Sparks, L. Boddy
      Original article citation: Science 316," (2007).

    • Categories: Biodiversity & Ecology, Regional Climate, and Climate Impacts
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:20PM GMT
      
      We have covered this paper as a highlight in NRCC. It's a really nice piece of work for a few reasons. Firstly, the study of 52,000 records of fungi from southern England shows that some fungi have now started to fruit twice a year as a result of climate change and that the fruiting season for fungi in southern England has more than doubled in the last half century. Secondly, the work was done by a father-and-son team of fungal enthusiasts. The father has been avidly spotting mushrooms for the past 50 years. And lastly, they took lots of great images of fungi, which are well worth checking out. Gets my vote!
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  • Thermal Stress and Coral Cover as Drivers of Coral Disease Outbreaks

    • John F. Bruno, Elizabeth R. Selig, Kenneth S. Casey, Cathie A. Page, Bette L. Willis, C. Drew Harvell, Hugh Sweatman, Amy M. Melendy
      Original article citation: Plos Biol 5," (2007).

    • Categories: Climate Impacts, Ocean Sciences, and Biodiversity & Ecology
    • Recommended by the Editor: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:19PM GMT
      
      A nice piece of work by John Bruno of the University of North Carolina, US and colleagues, which we've covered as a highlight on NRCC. They use high-res satellite imagery of ocean temperature with epidemiological inspections of corals to track the spread of white disease along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef over 6 years. It's the first conclusive evidence of a link between the frequency of warm years and the severity of the disease on corals.
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