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To project how ocean acidification will impact biological communities in the future, it is critical to understand the potential for local adaptation and the physiological plasticity of marine organisms throughout their entire life cycle, as some stages may be more vulnerable than others. Coralline algae are ecosystem engineers that play significant functional roles in oceans worldwide and are considered vulnerable to ocean acidification. Using different stages of coralline algae, we tested the hypothesis that populations living in environments with higher environmental variability and exposed to higher levels of pCO2 would be less affected by high pCO2 than populations from a more stable environment experiencing lower levels of pCO2. Our results show that spores are less sensitive to elevated pCO2 than adults. Spore growth and mortality were not affected by pCO2 level; however, elevated pCO2 negatively impacted the physiology and growth rates of adults, with stronger effects in populations that experienced both lower levels of pCO2 and lower variability in carbonate chemistry, suggesting local adaptation. Differences in physiological plasticity and the potential for adaptation could have important implications for the ecological and evolutionary responses of coralline algae to future environmental changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have reported reductions in body size and calcification rates for marine larvae exposed to ocean acidification conditions. However, the physiological mechanisms driving these effects, and mechanisms underlying body size variation in general, are poorly understood. Here, we combine transcriptome sequencing with bulked segregant analysis to assess the physiological response to acidification in larvae of the California mussel, Mytilus californianus, and to explore physiological basis of variation in larval size. We reared three families of M. californianus larvae under ambient (~350 µatm, pHtotal 8.1) and high (~1300 µatm, pHtotal 7.6) pCO2 conditions, then passed larvae through a mesh filter, separating each family × pCO2 treatment into fractions of larvae with large vs. small body sizes. We sequenced larval mRNA for each family × treatment × body size combination, and assembled a de novo transcriptome. We then mapped reads from each library to this assembly to identify effects of high pCO2 on gene expression, and to identify transcriptomic differences between small vs. large larvae of the same age class. Although larvae reared under elevated pCO2 were smaller, we observed no consistent effect of elevated pCO2 on gene expression. Nevertheless, 1225 transcripts, primarily related to metabolism, were differentially expressed between large vs. small larvae, regardless of CO2 treatment. We conclude that the observed reduction in larval body size under high CO2 may be driven by a direct effect of the environment on phenotype, unmediated by changes in gene expression. Because M. calfornianus has evolved in the context of seasonal upwelling, exposure to 1300 µatm, pCO2 may not produce the large stress-mediated effects on gene expression that might be expected for an organism exposed to conditions far outside those of its typical environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses individual records of 930,000 burials and 630,000 baptisms to reconstruct the spatial and temporal patterns of birth and death in London from 1560 to 1665, a period dominated by recurrent plague. The plagues of 1563, 1603, 1625, and 1665 appear of roughly equal magnitude, with deaths running at five to six times their usual rate, but the impact on wealthier central parishes falls markedly through time. Tracking the weekly spread of plague, we find no evidence that plague emerged first in the docks, and in many cases elevated mortality emerges first in the poor northern suburbs. Looking at the seasonal pattern of mortality, we find that the characteristic autumn spike associated with plague continued into the early 1700s. Natural increase improved as smaller crises disappeared after 1590, but fewer than half of those born survived childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physiological plasticity and adaptive evolution may facilitate persistence in a changing environment. As a result, there is an interest in understanding species' capacities for plastic and evolved responses, and the mechanisms by which these responses occur. Transcriptome sequencing has become a powerful tool for addressing these questions, providing insight into otherwise unobserved effects of changing conditions on organismal physiology and variation in these effects among individuals and populations. Here, we review recent studies using comparative transcriptomics to understand plastic and evolutionary responses to changing environments. We focus on 2 areas where transcriptomics has played an important role: first, in understanding the genetic basis for local adaptation to current gradients as a proxy for future adaptation, and second, in understanding organismal responses to multiple stressors. We find most studies examining multiple stressors have tested the effects of each stressor individually; the few studies testing multiple stressors simultaneously have found synergistic effects on gene expression that would not have been predicted from single stressor studies. We discuss the importance of robust experimental design to allow for a more sophisticated characterization of transcriptomic responses and conclude by offering recommendations for future research, including integrating genomics with transcriptomics, testing gene regulatory networks, and comparing the equivalence of transcription to translation and the effects of environmental stress on the proteome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing studies find little connection between living standards and mortality in England, but go back only to the sixteenth century. Using new data on inheritances, we extend estimates of mortality back to the mid-thirteenth century and find, by contrast, that deaths from unfree tenants to the nobility were strongly affected by living standards. Looking at a large sample of parishes after 1540, we find that the positive check had weakened considerably by 1650 even though living standards were static at best, but persisted in London for another century despite its higher wages. In both cases the disappearance of the positive check coincided with the introduction of systematic poor relief, suggesting that government action may have played a role in breaking the link between harvest failure and mass mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the history of the Little Ice Age (LIA) and the impact of climatic changes on early modern Europe. The authors discuss the annual winter and summer temperatures from the late Middle Ages to the 19th century and examine how weather patterns impacted human civilizations, including the decline in grape growing in England, the landscape paintings of Dutch painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and the freezing of the river Thames in London, England.

Ocean acidification, caused by the uptake of atmospheric CO2, is a threat to marine biodiversity, potentially rivalling the threat imposed by rising temperatures in some marine ecosystems. Although a growing body of literature documents negative effects of acidification on marine organisms, the majority of this work has focused on the effects of future conditions on modern populations, ignoring the potential effects of adaptation and physiological acclimatization., We review current literature on the potential for adaptation to elevated p CO2 in marine organisms. Although this body of work is currently quite small, we argue that data on the physiological effects of acidification, natural variation in p H and lessons learned from previous work on thermal adaptation can all inform predictions and priorities for future research., Spatially varying selection is one of the most important forces maintaining intraspecific genetic variation. Unlike temperature, p H lacks a strong and persistent global gradient, and so selection may maintain less adaptive variation for p H than for temperature. On the other hand, we are only beginning to amass long-term data sets for p H variation in natural habitats, and thus, p H gradients may be more common than previously observed., Two of the most important effects of elevated p CO2 are reduced calcification and changes in metabolism. We discuss the ways that a detailed understanding of the physiological mechanisms underlying these effects is key to predicting the capacity for acclimatization and adaptation., Important priorities for future research will be to assess local adaptation to p H conditions and to measure the capacity for adaptation to future acidified conditions in natural populations. Tools for this work include traditional quantitative genetics, transcriptomics and the adaptation of ion-sensitive field-effect transistor ( ISFET) technology for use in continuous seawater p H monitoring in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A species' mating system sets limits on the strength of sexual selection. Sexual selection is widespread in dioecious species, but is less well documented in hermaphrodites, and may be less important. We used four highly polymorphic microsatellite markers to assign paternity to broods of the hermaphroditic eastern Pacific volcano barnacle Tetraclita rubescens. These data were used to describe the species' mating system and to examine factors affecting male reproductive success. Tetraclita can sire broods over distances of 11.2 cm, but proximity to the sperm recipient had a highly significant effect on the probability of siring success. There was no effect of body size or the mass of male reproductive tissues on siring success. Broods showed relatively low frequencies of multiple paternity; even at high densities, 75% of broods had only one father. High frequencies of single-paternity broods imply either that this species does not compete via sperm displacement, or that sperm displacement is extremely effective, potentially explaining the lack of a positive relationship between male investment and paternity. In addition, there was low variance in siring success among individuals, suggesting a lack of strong sexual selection on male traits. Low variance among sires and the strong effect of proximity are probably driven by the unusual biology of a sessile copulating species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the English old poor law (OPL), instituted during the reign of British Queen Elizabeth I and continuing through the 1830s. It explores the historiography of studies of OPL, as well as considering changes in standards of living, the relationship between life expectancy and mortality rates during the seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries, and changes in real wages between the late medieval and early modern periods. Other subjects considered include British public health policies and public charities, the social impact of the plague, and how the OPL and poor relief benefited women.