BACKGROUND Given the recent changes in climate, there is an urgent need to understand the evolutionary ability of populations to respond to these changes. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We performed individual-based simulations with different shapes of the fitness curve, different heritabilities, different levels of density compensation, and different autocorrelation of environmental noise im...

The everyday auditory environment is complex and dynamic; often, multiple sounds co-occur and compete for a listener's cognitive resources. 'Change deafness', framed as the auditory analog to the well-documented phenomenon of 'change blindness', describes the finding that changes presented within complex environments are often missed. The present study examines a number of stimulus factors that...

We used a time series of satellite multispectral imagery for mapping and monitoring six classes of montane meadows arrayed along a moisture gradient (from hydric to mesic to xeric). We hypothesized that mesic meadows would support the highest species diversity of plants, birds, and butterflies because they are more moderate environments. We also hypothesized that mesic meadows would exhibit the...

A strong environmental change has been recognized in China with the impacts of climate change and intensive human activities on land use. In this paper, first environmental changes in China, such as those caused by human activities, land use, climate change, and social and economic development, are presented. Secondly, the hydrological prediction models and systems and their application in Chin...

During the next 50 years, which is likely to be the final period of rapid agricultural expansion, demand for food by a wealthier and 50% larger global population will be a major driver of global environmental change. Should past dependences of the global environmental impacts of agriculture on human population and consumption continue, 10(9) hectares of natural ecosystems would be converted to ...

Physiology, environmental change, and anuran conservation. This paper reviews diverse ways in which the emerging discipline of conservation physiology may contribute to the conservation of anuran amphibians. We first present a summary of the goals of conservation physiology. Then, we review five specific sources of environmental change that are known to affect anurans: introduced pathogens (hig...

This paper applies the pressure-state-response (PSR) model to establish environmental quality indices for 30 administrative regions in China from 2003 to 2011 and employs panel data analysis to study the relationships among the urbanization rate, economic development and environmental change. The results reveal a remarkable inverted-U-shaped relationship between the urbanization rate and change...

Widespread environmental changes including climate change, selective harvesting and landscape alterations now greatly affect selection regimes for most organisms. How animals and plants can adapt to these altered environments via contemporary evolution is thus of strong interest. We discuss how to use genetic monitoring to study adaptive responses via repeated analysis of the same populations o...

Environmental change has negatively affected most biological systems on our planet and is becoming of increasing concern for the well-being and survival of many species. At an organism level, effects encompass not only endocrine disruptions, sex-ratio changes and decreased reproductive parameters, but also include teratogenic and genotoxic effects, immunosuppression and other immune-system impa...