Scientists' warning on extreme wildfire risks to water supply.

2020 is the year of wildfire records. California experienced its three largest fires early in its fire season. The Pantanal, the largest wetland on the planet, burned over 20% of its surface. More than 18 million hectares of forest and bushland burned during the 2019-2020 fire season in Australia, killing 33 people, destroying nearly 2500 homes, and endangering many endemic species. The direct cost of damages is being counted in dozens of billion dollars, but the indirect costs on water-related ecosystem services and benefits could be equally expensive, with impacts lasting for decades. In Australia, the extreme precipitation ("200 mm day -1 in several location") that interrupted the catastrophic wildfire season triggered a series of watershed effects from headwaters to areas downstream. The increased runoff and erosion from burned areas disrupted water supplies in several locations. These post-fire watershed hazards via source water contamination, flash floods, and mudslides can represent substantial, systemic long-term risks to drinking water production, aquatic life, and socio-economic activity. Scenarios similar to the recent event in Australia are now predicted to unfold in the Western USA. This is a new reality that societies will have to live with as uncharted fire activity, water crises, and widespread human footprint collide all-around of the world. Therefore, we advocate for a more proactive approach to wildfire-watershed risk governance in an effort to advance and protect water security. We also argue that there is no easy solution to reducing this risk and that investments in both green (i.e., natural) and grey (i.e., built) infrastructure will be necessary. Further, we propose strategies to combine modern data analytics with existing tools for use by water and land managers worldwide to leverage several decades worth of data and knowledge on post-fire hydrology.

Acidification in the U.S. Southeast: Causes, Potential Consequences and the Role of the Southeast Ocean and Coastal Acidification Network.

Coastal acidification in southeastern U.S. estuaries and coastal waters is influenced by biological activity, run-off from the land, and increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Acidification can negatively impact coastal resources such as shellfish, finfish, and coral reefs, and the communities that rely on them. Organismal responses for species located in the U.S. Southeast document large negative impacts of acidification, especially in larval stages. For example, the toxicity of pesticides increases under acidified conditions and the combination of acidification and low oxygen has profoundly negative influences on genes regulating oxygen consumption. In corals, the rate of calcification decreases with acidification and processes such as wound recovery, reproduction, and recruitment are negatively impacted. Minimizing the changes in global ocean chemistry will ultimately depend on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, but adaptation to these changes and mitigation of the local stressors that exacerbate global acidification can be addressed locally. The evolution of our knowledge of acidification, from basic understanding of the problem to the emergence of applied research and monitoring, has been facilitated by the development of regional Coastal Acidification Networks (CANs) across the United States. This synthesis is a product of the Southeast Coastal and Ocean Acidification Network (SOCAN). SOCAN was established to better understand acidification in the coastal waters of the U.S. Southeast and to foster communication among scientists, resource managers, businesses, and governments in the region. Here we review acidification issues in the U.S. Southeast, including the regional mechanisms of acidification and their potential impacts on biological resources and coastal communities. We recommend research and monitoring priorities and discuss the role SOCAN has in advancing acidification research and mitigation of and adaptation to these changes.

Bird community response to fruit energy.

1. The abundance and predictability of food resources have been posited as explanations for the increase of animal species richness in tropical habitats. However, the heterogeneity of natural ecosystems makes it difficult to quantify a response of animal species richness to these qualities of food resources. 2. Fruit-frugivore studies are especially conducive for testing such ecological theories because fruit is conspicuous and easily counted. Fruit-frugivore research in some locations has demonstrated a relationship between animal abundance and fruit resource abundance, both spatially and temporally. These studies, which typically use fruit counts as the variable of fruit abundance, have never documented a response of species richness at the community level. Furthermore, these studies have not taken into account factors influencing the detection of an individual within surveys. 3. Using a combination of nonstandard approaches to fruit-frugivore research, we show a response of bird species richness to fruit resources. First, we use uniform and structurally similar, one-ha shade-grown coffee plots as replicated experimental units to reduce the influence of confounding variables. Secondly, we use multi-season occupancy modelling of a resident omnivorous bird assemblage in order to account for detection probability in our analysis of site occupancy, local immigration and local emigration. Thirdly, we expand our variable of fruit abundance, Fruit Energy Availability (FEA), to include not only fruit counts but also fruit size and fruit quality. 4. We found that a site's average monthly FEA was highly correlated (0.90) with a site's average bird species richness. In our multi-season occupancy model 92% of the weight of evidence supported a single model that included effects of FEA on initial occupancy, immigration, emigration and detection. 5. These results demonstrate that fruit calories can broadly influence the richness of a neotropical bird community, and that fluctuations of FEA explains much of the site occupancy patterns of component species. This study shows that in depauperate, managed landscapes fruit resource abundance supports more species and fruit constancy allows for higher levels of avian persistence, an important practical concept for conservation planning.