Climate change can impact the pattern of marine biodiversity through changes in species’ distributions. However, global studies on climate change impacts on ocean biodiversity have not been performed so far. Our paper aims to investigate the global patterns of such impacts by projecting the distributional ranges of a sample of 1066 exploited marine fish and invertebrates for 2050 using a newly developed dynamic bioclimate envelope model. Our projections show that climate change may lead to numerous local extinction in the sub-polar regions, the tropics and semi-enclosed seas. Simultaneously, species invasion is projected to be most intense in the Arctic and the Southern Ocean. Together, they result in dramatic species turnovers of over 60% of the present biodiversity, implying ecological disturbances that potentially disrupt ecosystem services. Our projections can be viewed as a set of hypothesis for future analytical and empirical studies.

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Projecting global marine biodiversity impacts under climate change scenarios

/pdf/ecosystems-their-properties-goods-and-services-s3a98obedp.pdf

Ecosystems, their properties, goods and services

Forecasts of species range shifts under climate change are fraught with uncertainties and ensemble forecasting may provide a framework to deal with such uncertainties. Here, a novel approach to partition the variance among modeled attributes, such as richness or turnover, and map sources of uncertainty in ensembles of forecasts is presented. We model the distributions of 3837 New World birds and project them into 2080. We then quantify and map the relative contribution of different sources of uncertainty from alternative methods for niche modeling, general circulation models (AOGCM), and emission scenarios. The greatest source of uncertainty in forecasts of species range shifts arises from using alternative methods for niche modeling, followed by AOGCM, and their interaction. Our results concur with previous studies that discovered that projections from alternative models can be extremely varied, but we provide a new analytical framework to examine uncertainties in models by quantifying their importance and mapping their patterns.

http://webpages.icav.up.pt/PTDC/AAC-CLI/110755/papers/Diniz-Filho_etal_2009_Ecography.pdf

Partitioning and mapping uncertainties in ensembles of forecasts of species turnover under climate change

High-resolution, easily accessible paleoclimate data are essential for environmental, evolutionary, and ecological studies. The availability of bioclimatic layers derived from climatic simulations representing conditions of the Late Pleistocene and Holocene has revolutionized the study of species responses to Late Quaternary climate change. Yet, integrative studies of the impacts of climate change in the Early Pleistocene and Pliocene – periods in which recent speciation events are known to concentrate – have been hindered by the limited availability of downloadable, user-friendly climatic descriptors. Here we present PaleoClim, a free database of downscaled paleoclimate outputs at 2.5-minute resolution (~5 km at equator) that includes surface temperature and precipitation estimates from snapshot-style climate model simulations using HadCM3, a version of the UK Met Office Hadley Centre General Circulation Model. As of now, the database contains climatic data for three key time periods spanning from 3.3 to 0.787 million years ago: the Marine Isotope Stage 19 (MIS19) in the Pleistocene (~787 ka), the mid-Pliocene Warm Period (~3.264–3.025 Ma), and MIS M2 in the Late Pliocene (~3.3 Ma). Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data (ISA-Tab format)

/pdf/paleoclim-high-spatial-resolution-paleoclimate-surfaces-for-2aej4umyiv.pdf

PaleoClim, high spatial resolution paleoclimate surfaces for global land areas

The report is a scientific contribution to the European Commission's Integrated Product Policy framework, which seeks to minimise the environmental degradation caused throughout the life cycle of products This report first presents a systematic overview of the life cycle of meat and dairy products and their environmental impacts, covering the full food chain It goes on to provide a comprehensive analysis of the improvement options that allow reducing the environmental impacts throughout the life cycle Finally, the report assesses the different options regarding their feasibility as well as their potential environmental and socioeconomic benefits and costs The report shows that meat and dairy products contribute on average 24% to the environmental impacts from the total final consumption in EU-27, while constituting only 6% of the economic value The main improvement options were identified in agricultural production, in food management by households (avoidance of food wastage), and related to power savings When all environmental improvement potentials are taken together, the aggregated environmental impacts (external costs) of meat and dairy products may be reduced by about 20% How to obtain EU publications Our priced publications are available from EU Bookshop (http://bookshopeuropaeu), where you can place an order with the sales agent of your choice The Publications Office has a worldwide network of sales agents You can obtain their contact details by sending a fax to (352) 29 29-42758

/pdf/environmental-improvement-potentials-of-meat-and-dairy-3ewrsgj36z.pdf

Environmental Improvement Potentials of Meat and Dairy Products

Thomas et al. reply — We reconsider our estimates of climate-related extinction1 in the light of three questions raised by Thuiller .2, Buckley and Roughgarden
 3 and Harte .4. We are able to confirm our original conclusion that climate change represents a major threat to terrestrial species1.

/pdf/biodiversity-conservation-uncertainty-in-predictions-of-vscr3hxen5.pdf

Biodiversity Conservation: Uncertainty in predictions of extinction risk/Effects of changes in climate and land use/Climate change and extinction risk (reply).

Lee Hannah

Papers

Biodiversity Conservation: Uncertainty in predictions of extinction risk/Effects of changes in climate and land use/Climate change and extinction risk (reply).