The Eocene-Oligocene Boundary (~34 million years ago) marks one of the largest extinctions of marine invertebrates in the world oceans and of mammalian fauna in Europe and Asia in the Cenozoic era. A shift to a cooler climate across this boundary has been suggested as the cause of this extinction in the marine environment, but there is no manifold evidence for a synchronous turnover of flora, f...

Chinese temperate grasslands play an important role in the terrestrial carbon cycle. Based on the parameterization and validation of Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM, Version 5.0), we analyzed the carbon budgets of Chinese temperate grasslands and their responses to historical atmospheric CO2 concentration and climate variability during 1951–2007. The results indicated that Chinese temperate gr...

Climates at the Last Glacial Maximum have been inferred from fossil pollen assemblages, but these inferred climates are colder for eastern North America than those produced by climate simulations. It has been suggested that low CO2 levels could account for this discrepancy. In this study biogeographic evidence is used to test the CO2 effect model. The recolonization of glaciated zones in easter...

By the end of this century, mean annual temperatures in the Northeastern United States are expected to warm by 3–5 °C, which will have significant impacts on the structure and function of temperate forests in this region. To improve understanding of these impacts, we exploited two recent climate anomalies to explore how the springtime phenology of Northeastern temperate deciduous forests will r...

Forests impact regional hydrology and climate directly by regulating water and heat fluxes. Indirect effects through cloud formation and precipitation can be important in facilitating continental-scale moisture recycling but are poorly understood at regional scales. In particular, the impact of temperate forest on clouds is largely unknown. Here we provide observational evidence for a strong in...

Organisms face continual fluctuations in global climatic processes to which they must adapt or perish. Considering that many species are key habitat formers and energy producers, such responses to climate change can have significant population, community and even ecosystem consequences. Paleo-records of ecosystem responses to past environmental variability have proven invaluable for studying im...

makrān or mukrān was a vast region in the south eastern plateau of iran, whose border extended from kerman on the west to sind on the east. this extended area was limited to sistan on the north and makrān sea (sea of oman) on the south. makrān, mākā, mīkā, mukrān, gidruziyā, zhidruziyā, etc. are the names applied to this region in different historical periods. the expanse of this region’s borde...

Although climate warming is expected to benefit temperate ectotherms by lengthening the summer growing season, declines in reproductive success following short, warm winters may counter such positive effects. Here we present long-term (1973-2010) field patterns for Lake Erie yellow perch, Perca flavescens, which show that failed annual recruitment events followed short, warm winters. Subsequent...

Herein, we consider insects in the temperate zone where, in central and eastern continental land masses, favorable summers are interspersed with inamicable, often lethal, winters. At latitudes higher than 30°, fitness consists of the ability to exploit the warm season through growth, development and reproduction, the ability to avoid or mitigate the effects of winter cold through dormancy or mi...