Browsing by Author "Cortes, Pablo A."

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    How academic research and news media cover climate change: a case study from Chile
    (2023) Cortes, Pablo A.; Quiroga, Riva
    Introduction Climate change has significant impacts on society, including the environment, economy, and human health. To effectively address this issue, it is crucial for both research and news media coverage to align their efforts and present accurate and comprehensive information to the public. In this study, we use a combination of text-mining and web-scrapping methods, as well as topic-modeling techniques, to examine the similarities, discrepancies, and gaps in the coverage of climate change in academic and general-interest publications in Chile.Methods We analyzed 1,261 academic articles published in the Web of Science and Scopus databases and 5,024 news articles from eight Chilean electronic platforms, spanning the period from 2012 to 2022.Results The findings of our investigation highlight three key outcomes. Firstly, the number of articles on climate change has increased substantially over the past decade, reflecting a growing interest and urgency surrounding the issue. Secondly, while both news media and academic research cover similar themes, such as climate change indicators, climate change impacts, and mitigation and adaptation strategies, the news media provides a wider variety of themes, including climate change and society and climate politics, which are not as commonly explored in academic research. Thirdly, academic research offers in-depth insights into the ecological consequences of global warming on coastal ecosystems and their inhabitants. In contrast, the news media tends to prioritize the tangible and direct impacts, particularly on agriculture and urban health.Discussion By integrating academic and media sources into our study, we shed light on their complementary nature, facilitating a more comprehensive communication and understanding of climate change. This analysis serves to bridge the communication gap that commonly, exists between scientific research and news media coverage. By incorporating rigorous analysis of scientific research with the wider reach of the news media, we enable a more informed and engaged public conversation on climate change.
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    Temperature variability and metabolic adaptation in terrestrial and aquatic ectotherms
    (2023) Carter, Mauricio J.; Cortes, Pablo A.; Rezende, Enrico L.
    Thermodynamics is a major factor determining rates of energy expenditure, rates of biochemical dynamics, and ultimately the biological and ecological processes linked with resilience to global warming in ectothermic organisms. Nonetheless, whether ectothermic organisms exhibit general adaptive metabolic responses to cope with worldwide variation in thermal conditions has remained as an open question. Here we combine a model comparison approach with a global dataset of standard metabolic rates (SMR), including 1,160 measurements across 788 species of aquatic invertebrates, insects, fishes, amphibians and reptiles, to investigate the association between metabolic rates and environmental temperatures in their respective habitats. Our analyses suggest that variation in SMR after removing allometric and thermodynamic effects is best explained by the temperature range encountered across seasons, which always provided a better fit than the average temperature for the hottest and coldest month and mean annual temperatures. This pattern was consistent across taxonomic groups and robust to sensitivity analyses. Nonetheless, aquatic and terrestrial lineages responded differently to seasonality, with SMR declining - 6.8% degrees C- 1 of thermal range across seasons in aquatic organisms and increasing 2.8% degrees C- 1 in terrestrial organisms. These responses may reflect alternative strategies to mitigate the impact of increments in warmer temperatures on energy expenditure, either by means of metabolic reduction in thermally homogeneous water bodies or effective behavioral thermoregulation to exploit temperature heterogeneity on land.
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    Thermal ecological physiology of native and invasive frog species: do invaders perform better?
    (2016) Cortes, Pablo A.; Puschel, Hans; Acuna, Paz; Bartheld, Jose L.; Bozinovic, Francisco
    Biological invasions are recognized as an important biotic component of global change that threatens the composition, structure and functioning of ecosystems, resulting in loss of biodiversity and displacement of native species. Although ecological characteristics facilitating the establishment and spread of non-native species are widely recognized, little is known about organismal attributes underlying invasion success. In this study, we tested the effect of thermal acclimation on thermal tolerance and locomotor performance in the invasive Xenopus laevis and the Chilean native Calyptocephalella gayi. In particular, the maximal righting performance (mu(MAX)), optimal temperature (T-O), lower (CTmin) and upper critical thermal limits (CTmax), thermal breadth (T-br) and the area under the performance curve (AUC) were studied after 6 weeks acclimation to 10 and 20 degrees C. We observed higher values of mu(max) and AUC in X. laevis in comparison to C. gayi. On the contrary, the invasive species showed lower values of CTmin in comparison to the native one. In contrast, CTmax, T-O and T-br showed no interspecific differences. Moreover, we found that both species have the ability to acclimate their locomotor performance and lower thermal tolerance limit at low temperatures. Our results demonstrate that X. laevis is a better performer than C. gayi. Although there were differences in CTmin, the invasive and native frogs did not differ in their thermal tolerance. Interestingly, in both species the lower and upper critical thermal limits are beyond the minimal and maximal temperatures encountered in nature during the coldest and hottest month, respectively. Overall, our findings suggest that both X. laevis and C. gayi would be resilient to climate warming expectations in Chile.