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Biodiversity in a Warmer World
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A new framework helps to understand how species ranges change under global warming.
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Biodiversity Risks from Fossil Fuel Extraction
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The overlapping of biodiverse areas and fossil fuel reserves indicates high-risk regions.
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Biotic Multipliers of Climate Change
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A focus on species interactions may improve predictions of the effects of climate change
on ecosystems.
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Bird population trends are linearly affected by climate change along species thermal ranges
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Beyond the effects of temperature increase on local population trends and on species distribution shifts, how populations of a given species are affected by climate change along a species range is still unclear. We tested whether and how species responses to climate change are related to the populations locations within the species thermal range. We compared the average 20 year growth rates of 62 terrestrial breeding birds in three European countries along the latitudinal gradient of the species ranges. After controlling for factors already reported to affect bird population trends (habitat specialization, migration distance and body mass), we found that populations breeding close to the species thermal maximum have lower growth rates than those in other parts of the thermal range, while those breeding close to the species thermal minimum have higher growth rates. These results were maintained even after having controlled for the effect of latitude per se. Therefore, the results cannot solely be explained by latitudinal clines linked to the geographical structure in local spring warming. Indeed, we found that populations are not just responding to changes in temperature at the hottest and coolest parts of the species range, but that they show a linear graded response across their European thermal range. We thus provide insights into how populations respond to climate changes. We suggest that projections of future species distributions, and also management options and conservation assessments, cannot be based on the assumption of a uniform response to climate change across a species range or at range edges only.
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Both population size and patch quality affect local extinctions and colonizations
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Currently, the habitat of many species is fragmented, resulting in small local populations with individuals occasionally dispersing between the remaining habitat patches. In a solitary bee metapopulation, extinction probability was related to both local bee population sizes and pollen resources measured as host plant population size. Patch size, on the other hand, had no additional predictive power. The turnover rate of local bee populations in 63 habitat patches over 4 years was high, with 72 extinction events and 31 colonization events, but the pollen plant population was stable with no extinctions or colonizations. Both pollen resources and bee populations had strong and independent effects on extinction probability, but connectivity was not of importance. Colonizations occurred more frequently within larger host plant populations. For metapopulation survival of the bee, large pollen plant populations are essential, independent of current bee population size.
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Call for a climate culture shift
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A new book describes the rapid reshaping of human priorities needed to save the planet from global warming. Some of that change is already under way at the community level, explains Robert Costanza.
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Citizen Involvement in the U.S. Endangered Species Act
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Data on listed species refute critiques of citizen involvement in the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
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Classification of Climate Change-Induced Stresses on Biological Diversity
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Conservation actions need to account for and be adapted to address changes that will occur under global climate change. The identification of stresses on biological diversity (as defined in the Convention on Biological Diversity) is key in the process of adaptive conservation management. We considered any impact of climate change on biological diversity a stress because such an effect represents a change (negative or positive) in key ecological attributes of an ecosystem or parts of it. We applied a systemic approach and a hierarchical framework in a comprehensive classification of stresses to biological diversity that are caused directly by global climate change. Through analyses of 20 conservation sites in 7 countries and a review of the literature, we identified climate-change-induced stresses. We grouped the identified stresses according to 3 levels of biological diversity: stresses that affect individuals and populations, stresses that affect biological communities, and stresses that affect ecosystem structure and function. For each stress category, we differentiated 3 hierarchical levels of stress: stress class (thematic grouping with the coarsest resolution, 8); general stresses (thematic groups of specific stresses, 21); and specific stresses (most detailed definition of stresses, 90). We also compiled an overview of effects of climate change on ecosystem services using the categories of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and 2 additional categories. Our classification may be used to identify key climate-change-related stresses to biological diversity and may assist in the development of appropriate conservation strategies. The classification is in list format, but it accounts for relations among climate-change-induced stresses.
Keywords: adaptation, conservation, strategies,adaptive management,climatechange,conservation planning, conservation targets, hierarchical framework, threats to biological diversity
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Conservation Biology: Predicting Birds’ Responses to Forest Fragmentation
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Understanding species’ ecological responses to habitat fragmentation is critical for biodiversity conservation, especially in tropical forests. A detailed recent study has shown that changes in the abundances of bird species following fragmentation may be dramatic and unpredictable.
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Defaunation in the Anthropocene
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We live amid a global wave of anthropogenically driven biodiversity loss: species
and population extirpations and, critically, declines in local species abundance.
Particularly, human impacts on animal biodiversity are an under-recognized form of
global environmental change. Among terrestrial vertebrates, 322 species have
become extinct since 1500, and populations of the remaining species show 25%
average decline in abundance. Invertebrate patterns are equally dire: 67% of
monitored populations show 45% mean abundance decline. Such animal declines
will cascade onto ecosystem functioning and human well-being. Much remains unknown
about this “Anthropocene defaunation”; these knowledge gaps hinder our capacity
to predict and limit defaunation impacts. Clearly, however, defaunation is both a
pervasive component of the planet’s sixth mass extinction and also a major driver of
global ecological change
25 JULY 2014 • VOL 345 ISSUE 6195
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