Accelerating rates of climate change and a paucity of whole-community studies of climate impacts limit our ability to forecast shifts in ecosystem structure and dynamics, particularly because climate change can lead to idiosyncratic responses via both demographic effects and altered species interactions. We used a multispecies model to predict which processes and species' responses are likely t...

Global change presents humanity with unprecedented challenges. Climate change, altered natural cycles, and pollution of air, water, and biota threaten the very conditions on which human civilization has depended for the last 12 000 years. While human health is better now than ever before in human history, climate change is undermining many public health advances of the last century and ultimate...

The risks of climate change resulting from the increase in atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases have been well-documented. There are likely to be especially adverse effects on developing countries and particularly the poor within these countries. There is a global consensus that strong actions need to be taken to ensure that the world does not face excessive risk from an increase in th...

Southeast Asia includes four overlapping biodiversity hotspots: Indo-Burma, Philippines, Sundaland and Wallacea (Myers et al. 2000; Sodihi et al. 2004). Southeast Asia covers about 4.5 million km2, which is approximately 3 % of earth’s total land area. There is, however, approximately 20 to 25 % of Earth’s higher plant species in this area (Myers et al. 2000). It is crucial to understand the bi...

Anthropogenic climate change is the most prominent conservation issue of our time. Expectations are that the Earth’s climate will warm ~2.5–6.5! within the next century. The accompanying biological consequences will no doubt be huge. Howwill the diversity of life on our planet respond to rapid climate change? The best way to predict the future may be to examine the past as biota have experience...

The Atlantic hurricanes of 1999 caused widespread environmental damage throughout the Caribbean and US mid-Atlantic coastal regions. However, these storms also proved beneficial to certain microbial habitats; specifically, cyanobacteria-dominated mats. Modern mats represent the oldest known biological communities on earth, stromatolites. Contemporary mats are dominant biological communities in ...

BACKGROUND The southern African tick shell, Nassarius kraussianus (Dunker, 1846), has been identified as being the earliest known ornamental object used by human beings. Shell beads dated from approximately 75,000 years ago (Pleistocene era) were found in a cave located on South Africa's south coast. Beads made from N. kraussianus shells have also been found in deposits in this region dating fr...

A main operating assumption of Community Change Initiatives (CCIs) is that communities in general, and community-based organizations in particular, can improve economic opportunities and outcomes in their communities through community economic development.1 It is hoped that by stimulating business activity in the local neighborhood, community economic development programs can enhance the qualit...