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Institute
The immense advances in computer power achieved in the last decades have had a significant impact in Earth science, providing valuable research outputs that allow the simulation of complex natural processes and systems, and generating improved forecasts. The development and implementation of innovative geoscientific software is currently evolving towards a sustainable and efficient development by integrating models of different aspects of the Earth system. This will set the foundation for a future digital twin of the Earth. The codification and update of this software require great effort from research groups and therefore, it needs to be preserved for its reuse by future generations of geoscientists. Here, we report on Geo-Soft-CoRe, a Geoscientific Software & Code Repository, hosted at the archive DIGITAL.CSIC. This is an open source, multidisciplinary and multiscale collection of software and code developed to analyze different aspects of the Earth system, encompassing tools to: 1) analyze climate variability; 2) assess hazards, and 3) characterize the structure and dynamics of the solid Earth. Due to the broad range of applications of these software packages, this collection is useful not only for basic research in Earth science, but also for applied research and educational purposes, reducing the gap between the geosciences and the society. By providing each software and code with a permanent identifier (DOI), we ensure its self-sustainability and accomplish the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) principles. Therefore, we aim for a more transparent science, transferring knowledge in an easier way to the geoscience community, and encouraging an integrated use of computational infrastructure.
Under ongoing climate change and increasing anthropogenic activity, which continuously challenge ecosystem resilience, an in-depth understanding of ecological processes is urgently needed. Lakes, as providers of numerous ecosystem services, face multiple stressors that threaten their functioning. Harmful cyanobacterial blooms are a persistent problem resulting from nutrient pollution and climate-change induced stressors, like poor transparency, increased water temperature and enhanced stratification. Consistency in data collection and analysis methods is necessary to achieve fully comparable datasets and for statistical validity, avoiding issues linked to disparate data sources. The European Multi Lake Survey (EMLS) in summer 2015 was an initiative among scientists from 27 countries to collect and analyse lake physical, chemical and biological variables in a fully standardized manner. This database includes in-situ lake variables along with nutrient, pigment and cyanotoxin data of 369 lakes in Europe, which were centrally analysed in dedicated laboratories. Publishing the EMLS methods and dataset might inspire similar initiatives to study across large geographic areas that will contribute to better understanding lake responses in a changing environment.
Insight into how environmental change determines the production and distribution of cyanobacterial toxins is necessary for risk assessment. Management guidelines currently focus on hepatotoxins (microcystins). Increasing attention is given to other classes, such as neurotoxins (e.g., anatoxin-a) and cytotoxins (e.g., cylindrospermopsin) due to their potency. Most studies examine the relationship between individual toxin variants and environmental factors, such as nutrients, temperature and light. In summer 2015, we collected samples across Europe to investigate the effect of nutrient and temperature gradients on the variability of toxin production at a continental scale. Direct and indirect effects of temperature were the main drivers of the spatial distribution in the toxins produced by the cyanobacterial community, the toxin concentrations and toxin quota. Generalized linear models showed that a Toxin Diversity Index (TDI) increased with latitude, while it decreased with water stability. Increases in TDI were explained through a significant increase in toxin variants such as MC-YR, anatoxin and cylindrospermopsin, accompanied by a decreasing presence of MC-LR. While global warming continues, the direct and indirect effects of increased lake temperatures will drive changes in the distribution of cyanobacterial toxins in Europe, potentially promoting selection of a few highly toxic species or strains.
Insight into how environmental change determines the production and distribution of cyanobacterial toxins is necessary for risk assessment. Management guidelines currently focus on hepatotoxins (microcystins). Increasing attention is given to other classes, such as neurotoxins (e.g., anatoxin-a) and cytotoxins (e.g., cylindrospermopsin) due to their potency. Most studies examine the relationship between individual toxin variants and environmental factors, such as nutrients, temperature and light. In summer 2015, we collected samples across Europe to investigate the effect of nutrient and temperature gradients on the variability of toxin production at a continental scale. Direct and indirect effects of temperature were the main drivers of the spatial distribution in the toxins produced by the cyanobacterial community, the toxin concentrations and toxin quota. Generalized linear models showed that a Toxin Diversity Index (TDI) increased with latitude, while it decreased with water stability. Increases in TDI were explained through a significant increase in toxin variants such as MC-YR, anatoxin and cylindrospermopsin, accompanied by a decreasing presence of MC-LR. While global warming continues, the direct and indirect effects of increased lake temperatures will drive changes in the distribution of cyanobacterial toxins in Europe, potentially promoting selection of a few highly toxic species or strains.