Antarctic terrestrial ecosystems experience some of the most extreme growth conditions on Earth and are characterised by extreme aridity and sub-zero temperatures. Antarctic vegetation is therefore at the physiological limits of survival and, as a consequence, even slight changes to growth conditions are likely to have a large impact, rendering Antarctic terrestrial communities sensitive to cli...

Aridity conditions in semi-arid lands with warm climates are key variables that must be assessed to properly manage water and plan minimise the threat of desertification. This study analyses spatial distribution aridity Extremadura, southwestern Spain, using De Martonne index (IDM), considering a historical reference period (1971–2005) three-time intervals: 2006–2035 (near future), 2036–2065 (m...

Dryland soils provide different societal and environmental services, such as food supply biodiversity support. In Europe, most of the dryland areas are devoted to agriculture. next decades, both European worldwide drylands expected suffer with increased intensity due climate change-derived rise in aridity. Many studies have focussed on aridity-induced changes major nutrients drylands, but littl...

Recent research has shown that the ecology of stress has hitherto been neglected, but it is in fact an important influence on the distribution and numbers of wild vertebrates. Environmental changes have the potential to cause physiological stress that can affect population dynamics. Detailed information on the influence of environmental variables on glucocorticoid levels (a measure of stress) a...

Parallel changes in lake-level and pollen data show that the rapid decline of the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) between 10,000 and 8000 cal yr BP triggered a step-like change in North American climates: from an ice-sheet-and-insolation-dominated climate to a climate primarily controlled by insolation. Maps of the lake-level data from across eastern North America show a reorganization of climate pa...

During the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), Western North America experienced episodes of intense aridity that persisted for multiple decades or longer. These megadroughts are well documented in many proxy records, but the causal mechanisms are poorly understood. General circulation models (GCMs) simulate megadroughts, but do not reproduce the temporal clustering of events during the MCA, sugges...

Reference evapotranspiration (ET0) plays an irreplaceable role in regional dry/wet 15 conditions under the background of climate change. Based on the FAO Penman-Monteith method 16 and daily climate variables, ET0 was calculated for 22 stations in and around Songnen Grassland, 17 northeast China, during 1960-2014. The temporal and spatial variations of ET0 and precipitation (P) 18 were comprehen...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the ecological niche models (ENMs) for three specialist trees (Anadenanthera colubrina, Aspidosperma pyrifolium and Myracrodruon urundeuva) in seasonally dry tropical forests (SDTFs) in Brazil, considering present and future pessimist scenarios (2080) of climate change. These three species exhibit typical deciduousness and are widely distributed by SDTF in ...