Since the last Ice Age ( 115 000-11 700 years ago), the geographical ranges of most plants and animals have shifted, expanded or contracted. Understanding the timing, geographical patterns and drivers of past changes in insect communities is essential for evaluating the biodiversity implications of future climate changes, yet our knowledge of long-term patterns is limited. We applied a network modelling approach to the recent fossil record of northwestern European beetles to investigate how their taxonomic and trait composition changed during the past 16 000 years.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the 12,000 years preceding the Industrial Revolution, human activities led to significant changes in land cover, plant and animal distributions, surface hydrology, and biochemical cycles. Earth system models suggest that this anthropogenic land cover change influenced regional and global climate. However, the representation of past land use in earth system models is currently oversimplified.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEmerging nurse leaders are not adequately prepared to handle the pervasive health care problems and threats related to the changing environment. Nurse educators prepare nurses for an extensive variety of roles and responsibilities necessary to meet the health care needs of society. The Penn State College of Nursing implemented several initiatives to support environmental sustainability within the college and nursing education.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnvironmentally transformative human use of land accelerated with the emergence of agriculture, but the extent, trajectory, and implications of these early changes are not well understood. An empirical global assessment of land use from 10,000 years before the present (yr B.P.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhile there is extensive evidence for the Late Devensian, less is known about Early and Middle Devensian (approx. 110-30 ka) climates and environments in the UK. The Greenland ice-core record suggests the UK should have endured multiple changes, but the terrestrial palaeo-record lacks sufficient detail for confirmation from sites in the British Isles.
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