Please join us for the next Science on Google+ Posterside Hangouts.

Please join us for the next Science on Google+ Posterside Hangouts. The topic will be Ecology and Environmental Science.

Originally shared by Science on Google+

Posterside Hangouts is a new Hangouts On Air, which is hosted by the Science on Google+ Community (http://goo.gl/uhJCN). The theme for the third Posterside Hangouts is Ecology and Environmental Science (see below for a list of presenters and talks). Fill out this short form (http://goo.gl/e0KPhE) if you would like to present your research (any discipline) in an upcoming Posterside Hangouts HOA.

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Titles and Authors

Spatial representativeness of ambient monitors – a geostatistical approach Gustavo Olivares 

More rapid and severe disease outbreaks for aquaculture at the tropics: implications for food security Tommy Leung 

Robust increases in severe thunderstorm environments in response to greenhouse forcing Noah Diffenbaugh 

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Abstracts and Links

Spatial representativeness of ambient monitors – a geostatistical approach

“One of air quality management biggest challenges is to characterise the ambient air of an extensive urban area based on a limited number of point measurements. These points are often chosen trying to satisfy a number of conflicting goals and are not necessarily in line with the original design goal. The results presented here show the use of mobile data and a particular geo-statistics tool (variograms) to quantify the spatial representativeness of point air quality monitors.”

More rapid and severe disease outbreaks for aquaculture at the tropics: implications for food security

“Aquaculture is replacing capture fisheries in supplying the world with dietary protein and although disease is a major threat to aquaculture production, the underlying global epidemiological patterns are unknown. For this study, we analysed severity of disease outbreak (measured in terms of cumulative mortality) across different latitudes in a diverse range of aquaculture systems including both finfish and shellfish. Our analyses include a wide range of factors including latitude, governance efficiency, taxon of the cultured species, whether the cultured species were native to the range where the outbreak occurred, and the type of disease agent (bacterial, viral or parasitic) which caused the outbreak. 

We found that disease outbreaks at lower latitudes progresses more rapidly and results in higher cumulative mortality. We also found that invertebrates and juveniles stages of finfish are particularly vulnerable and suffer greater losses. Overall, tropical countries suffer proportionally greater losses in aquaculture during disease outbreaks and have less time to take actions to mitigate losses. Disease can present a major problem for food production and security in equatorial regions where fish and shellfish provide a major source of dietary protein. As the incidences of some infectious diseases may increase with climate change, adaptation strategies must consider global patterns in disease vulnerability of aquaculture and develop options to minimize impacts on food production.”

Robust increases in severe thunderstorm environments in response to greenhouse forcing

“Severe thunderstorms are one of the primary causes of catastrophic loss in the United States. However, the response of such storms to elevated greenhouse forcing has remained highly uncertain. We use an ensemble of global climate model experiments to probe the severe thunderstorm response. We find that this ensemble exhibits robust increases in the occurrence of severe thunderstorm environments over the eastern United States. In addition, the simulated changes in the atmospheric environment indicate an increase in the number of days supportive of the spectrum of convective hazards, with the suggestion of a possible increase in the number of days supportive of tornadic storms. Given current vulnerabilities, such increases imply increasing risk of thunderstorm-related damage if global warming continues.”

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/09/18/1307758110.abstract

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