Climate Change, Adaptation, and Vulnerability

Abstract

This article reconceptualizes current analyses of adaptation and vulnerability to climate change within an evolutionary theory of social change premised on the concept of a socially constructed adaptive landscape. The latter describes a negotiated and contested fitness terrain. Individual and corporate actors simultaneously adapt to and actively manipulate this terrain by using alternative collective action frames, mobilizing resources, and creating or exploiting political opportunities in order to legitimate or delegitimate social structures and their associated technologies at various levels of analysis. Adaptation is conceptualized as occurring through homeostatic, developmental, rational choice, and populational mechanisms. Vulnerability results from the adaptive failure of social structures sustaining individual and collective health, livelihood, and well-being. This framework combines organizational sociologists’ insights into structure–environment interaction; constructionists’ attention to agency, language, culture, and values; and political ecologists’ concerns with power, inequality, and processes of marginalization.

Drought consistently alters the composition of soil fungal and bacterial communities in grasslands from two continents

“…Climate models forecast widespread changes in precipitation regimes, including longer, more intense droughts (McLaughlin, 2014), causing desertification and promoting the expansion of drylands globally (Huang, Yu, Guan, Wang, & Guo, 2016). Field-based climate change studies have traditionally focused on aboveground responses (e.g., plant productivity, biomass, and community composition) of local studies, whereas belowground responses, particularly those of microbial communities, have received much less attention (Wilcox, von Fischer, Muscha, Petersen, & Knapp, 2015;Wilcox et al, 2017).…”

“…Drought experiments and meta-analyses consistently predict negative impacts of drought on the diversity and abundance of soil microbial communities (Wu, Dijkstra, Koch, Peñuelas, & Hungate, 2011), with bacteria typically considered more sensitive than fungi (Evans & Wallenstein, 2012;Fry et al, 2016). Given the strong link between microbial communities and soil functioning, any alteration in the composition of microbial communities due to climate change might disrupt the functioning of soil, and thus the supply of ecosystem services (Bellard, Bertelsmeier, Leadley, Thuiller, & Courchamp, 2012;McLaughlin, 2014). Because of this, improving our understanding of the role of altered precipitation regimes in the regulation of soil microbial communities is of paramount importance to accurately predict changes in terrestrial ecosystem processes linked to future climate change scenarios (Delgado-Baquerizo et al, 2016b;Maestre et al, 2015).…”

Parasites of an Arctic scavenger; the wolverine (Gulo gulo)

“…The common occurrence of Baylisascaris in species of the lower Arctic is attributed to the parasite's ability to persist in the external environment. It would appear, however, there is perhaps a northern limit of B. devosi , indicative from our finding that B. devosi abundance decreases with latitude –an important finding considering that increasing temperatures within the Arctic are expected to contribute to the northern expansion of parasites into regions that were previously inhospitable ( Brooks and Hoberg, 2007 ; Kutz et al, 2009 ; McLaughlin, 2011 ). This finding resembles what is seen in some ascarid nematodes, such as Toxocara canis which does poorly above 60°N (reviewed by Jenkins et al, 2011 ), but not others, such as Toxascaris leonina which is found all the way up in to the high Arctic ( Andreassen et al, 2017 ; Kapel and Nansen, 1996 ).…”

“…The Arctic is undergoing some of the most rapid rates of climate change and is therefore at high risk of parasite emergence, which may shift baseline data ( Brooks and Hoberg, 2007 ; Kutz et al, 2009 ; McLaughlin, 2011 ). It has been forecast that increases in air temperature will be most dramatic at high latitudes ( Dobson et al, 2015 ) and already the Arctic has experienced the 10 warmest years in the past 2 millennia ( Kaufman et al, 2009 ; Hoegh-Guldberg et al, 2018 ).…”

“…It has been forecast that increases in air temperature will be most dramatic at high latitudes ( Dobson et al, 2015 ) and already the Arctic has experienced the 10 warmest years in the past 2 millennia ( Kaufman et al, 2009 ; Hoegh-Guldberg et al, 2018 ). One expected consequence of warming air temperatures and increased precipitation in the northern hemisphere is a significant increase in the northern expansion of parasites and their hosts into regions that were previously inhospitable to them ( Brooks and Hoberg, 2007 ; Kutz et al, 2009 ; McLaughlin, 2011 ). Consequently, the monitoring of wildlife plays an important role in identifying changes such that actions can be taken to mitigate or minimize pressure.…”