scholarly journals The realised velocity of climate change reveals remarkable idiosyncrasy of species’ distributional shifts

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
William D. Pearse ◽  
T. Jonathan Davies
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Changing Climate ◽  
Recent Climate ◽  
Specific Variation ◽  
Broad Variety ◽  
Species Responses ◽  
Climate Velocity ◽  
Distributional Shifts ◽  
Null Expectation

To date, our understanding of how species have shifted in response to recent climate warming has been based on a few studies with a limited number of species. Here we present a comprehensive, global overview of species’ distributional responses to changing climate across a broad variety of taxa (animals, plants, and fungi). We characterise species’ responses using a metric that describes the realised velocity of climate change: how closely species’ responses have tracked changing climate through time. In contrast to existing ‘climate velocity’ metrics that have focused on space, we focus on species and index their responses to a null expectation of change in order to examine drivers of inter-specific variation. Here we show that species are tracking climate on average, but not sufficiently to keep up with the pace of climate change. Further, species responses are highly idiosyncratic, and thus highlight that projections assuming uniform responses may be misleading. This is in stark contrast to species’ present-day and historical climate niches, which show strong evidence of the imprint of evolutionary history and functional traits. Our analyses are a first step in exploring the vast wealth of empirical data on species’ historic responses to recent climate change.

scholarly journals Uncertainty, Complexity and Constraints: How do We Robustly Assess Biological Responses Under a Rapidly Changing Climate?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Imtiaz Rangwala ◽  
Wynne Moss ◽  
Jane Wolken ◽  
Renee Rondeau ◽  
Karen Newlon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
Expert Elicitation ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Changing Climate ◽  
Biological Responses ◽  
Recent Climate ◽  
Spatiotemporal Scales

How robust is our assessment of impacts to ecosystems and species from a rapidly changing climate during the 21st century? We examine the challenges of uncertainty, complexity and constraints associated with applying climate projections to understanding future biological responses. This includes an evaluation of how to incorporate the uncertainty associated with different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios and climate models, and constraints of spatiotemporal scales and resolution of climate data into impact assessments. We describe the challenges of identifying relevant climate metrics for ecological models and evaluate the usefulness and limitations of different methodologies of applying climate change to both quantitative and qualitative ecological response models. We discuss the importance of incorporating extreme climate events and their stochastic tendencies in assessing ecological impacts and transformation, and provide recommendations for better integration of complex climate-ecological interactions at relevant spatiotemporal scales. We further recognize the compounding nature of uncertainty when accounting for our limited understanding of the interactions between climate and biological processes. Given the inherent complexity in ecological processes and their interactions with climate, we recommend integrating quantitative modeling with expert elicitation from diverse disciplines and experiential understanding of recent climate-driven ecological processes to develop more robust understanding of ecological responses under different scenarios of future climate change. Inherently complex interactions between climate and biological systems also provide an opportunity to develop wide-ranging strategies that resource managers can employ to prepare for the future.

scholarly journals Phenological tracking of a seasonal climate window in a recovering tropical island bird species

2021 ◽  
Vol 164 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Taylor ◽  
Malcolm A. C. Nicoll ◽  
Emily Black ◽  
Caroline M. Wainwright ◽  
Carl G. Jones ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Phenotypic Plasticity ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Egg Laying ◽  
Adaptive Plasticity ◽  
Tropical Species ◽  
Breeding Phenology ◽  
Seasonal Climate ◽  
Changing Climate ◽  
Recent Climate

AbstractConstraints on evolutionary adaptation and range shifts mean that phenotypic plasticity, which includes physiological, developmental or behavioural responses to environmental conditions, could be an important mode of adaptation to a changing climate for many species with small insular populations. While there is evidence to suggest adaptive plasticity to climate in some island populations, little is known about this capacity in species that have experienced a severe population bottleneck. In a changing climate, plasticity in the timing of life-history events, such as in breeding phenology, is adaptive if timing is optimised in seasonal environments, although these processes are poorly understood for tropical species. Here, we quantify the effects of climate on the breeding phenology and success of the Mauritius kestrel (Falco punctatus), a tropical raptor whose extinction has been averted by conservation management. We show that the timing of egg-laying is advancing in response to warming, at rates similar to temperate bird populations. Individual females show plasticity to temperature, although there is limited variation among individual responses. We show that advances in breeding phenology are likely to be adaptive, as they track changes in a seasonal climate window of favourable conditions, defined by late winter-early spring temperatures and the onset of the summer rainy season. Our results provide a rare example of a small and bottlenecked insular population that has adjusted to recent climate change through phenotypic plasticity. Furthermore, seasonal climate windows and their dynamics may be widespread mechanisms through which tropical species are impacted by and respond to climate change.

scholarly journals Uncertainty, Complexity and Constraints: How Do We Robustly Assess Biological Responses under a Rapidly Changing Climate?

Climate ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 177
Author(s):  
Imtiaz Rangwala ◽  
Wynne Moss ◽  
Jane Wolken ◽  
Renee Rondeau ◽  
Karen Newlon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
Expert Elicitation ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Changing Climate ◽  
Biological Responses ◽  
Recent Climate ◽  
Spatiotemporal Scales

How robust is our assessment of impacts to ecosystems and species from a rapidly changing climate during the 21st century? We examine the challenges of uncertainty, complexity and constraints associated with applying climate projections to understanding future biological responses. This includes an evaluation of how to incorporate the uncertainty associated with different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios and climate models, and constraints of spatiotemporal scales and resolution of climate data into impact assessments. We describe the challenges of identifying relevant climate metrics for biological impact assessments and evaluate the usefulness and limitations of different methodologies of applying climate change to both quantitative and qualitative assessments. We discuss the importance of incorporating extreme climate events and their stochastic tendencies in assessing ecological impacts and transformation, and provide recommendations for better integration of complex climate–ecological interactions at relevant spatiotemporal scales. We further recognize the compounding nature of uncertainty when accounting for our limited understanding of the interactions between climate and biological processes. Given the inherent complexity in ecological processes and their interactions with climate, we recommend integrating quantitative modeling with expert elicitation from diverse disciplines and experiential understanding of recent climate-driven ecological processes to develop a more robust understanding of ecological responses under different scenarios of future climate change. Inherently complex interactions between climate and biological systems also provide an opportunity to develop wide-ranging strategies that resource managers can employ to prepare for the future.

Evaluation of simulated recent climate change in Australia

2015 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Bhend ◽  
Penny Whetton
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Recent Climate Change ◽  
Recent Climate

DEATH ASSEMBLAGES AS RECORDERS OF RECENT CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE CONTINENTAL SHELF

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric N. Powell ◽  
◽  
Kelsey Kuykendall ◽  
Paula Moreno ◽  
Sara Pace
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Continental Shelf ◽  
Recent Climate Change ◽  
Recent Climate ◽  
Death Assemblages

scholarly journals Effects of climate change and industrialization on Lake Bolshoe Toko, eastern Siberia

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-352
Author(s):  
Boris K. Biskaborn ◽  
Biljana Narancic ◽  
Kathleen R. Stoof-Leichsenring ◽  
Lyudmila A. Pestryakova ◽  
Peter G. Appleby ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Deep Water ◽  
Boreal Lakes ◽  
Lake Ecosystem ◽  
Intermediate Water ◽  
Eastern Siberia ◽  
Natural Ecosystems ◽  
Planktonic Diatoms ◽  
Recent Climate

AbstractIndustrialization in the Northern Hemisphere has led to warming and pollution of natural ecosystems. We used paleolimnological methods to explore whether recent climate change and/or pollution had affected a very remote lake ecosystem, i.e. one without nearby direct human influence. We compared sediment samples that date from before and after the onset of industrialization in the mid-nineteenth century, from four short cores taken at water depths between 12.1 and 68.3 m in Lake Bolshoe Toko, eastern Siberia. We analyzed diatom assemblage changes, including diversity estimates, in all four cores and geochemical changes (mercury, nitrogen, organic carbon) from one core taken at an intermediate water depth. Chronologies for two cores were established using 210Pb and 137Cs. Sedimentation rates were 0.018 and 0.033 cm year−1 at the shallow- and deep-water sites, respectively. We discovered an increase in light planktonic diatoms (Cyclotella) and a decrease in heavily silicified euplanktonic Aulacoseira through time at deep-water sites, related to more recent warmer air temperatures and shorter periods of lake-ice cover, which led to pronounced thermal stratification. Diatom beta diversity in shallow-water communities changed significantly because of the development of new habitats associated with macrophyte growth. Mercury concentrations increased by a factor of 1.6 since the mid-nineteenth century as a result of atmospheric fallout. Recent increases in the chrysophyte Mallomonas in all cores suggested an acidification trend. We conclude that even remote boreal lakes are susceptible to the effects of climate change and human-induced pollution.

scholarly journals Introducing the Built Environment in a Changing Climate: Interactions, Challenges, and Perspectives

Climate ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 104
Author(s):  
Giulia Ulpiani ◽  
Michele Zinzi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Changing Climate ◽  
Climate Interactions

Planning for climate change adaptation is among the most complex challenges cities are facing today [...]

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