Showing papers by "Stephen E. Williams published in 2003"
TL;DR: The impacts of global climate change in the tropical rainforests of northeastern Australia have the potential to result in many extinctions, and bioclimatic models of spatial distribution for the regionally endemic rainforest vertebrates are developed to predict the effects of climate warming on species distributions.
Abstract: It is now widely accepted that global climate change is affecting many ecosystems around the globe and that its impact is increasing rapidly. Many studies predict that impacts will consist largely of shifts in latitudinal and altitudinal distributions. However, we demonstrate that the impacts of global climate change in the tropical rainforests of northeastern Australia have the potential to result in many extinctions. We develop bioclimatic models of spatial distribution for the regionally endemic rainforest vertebrates and use these models to predict the effects of climate warming on species distributions. Increasing temperature is predicted to result in significant reduction or complete loss of the core environment of all regionally endemic vertebrates. Extinction rates caused by the complete loss of core environments are likely to be severe, nonlinear, with losses increasing rapidly beyond an increase of 2 degrees C, and compounded by other climate-related impacts. Mountain ecosystems around the world, such as the Australian Wet Tropics bioregion, are very diverse, often with high levels of restricted endemism, and are therefore important areas of biodiversity. The results presented here suggest that these systems are severely threatened by climate change.
543 citations
01 Aug 2003
TL;DR: Williams et al. as discussed by the authors showed that climate change is a particularly significant threat to the long-term preservation of the biota in the tropical rainforests of Australia's Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.
Abstract: Climate change is a particularly significant threat to the long-term preservation of the biota in the tropical rainforests of Australia's Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. The Wet Tropics is dominated by mountain ranges with altitudes varying sharply between sea level and over 1600 m. Environmental gradients associated with a complex topography dominate the biogeography of the region (Nix and Switzer 1991, Williams et al. 1996). The gradient in altitude is the most significant environmental gradient determining species composition and general patterns of biodiversity (Williams et al. 1996, Williams and Pearson 1997). Most rainforest is above 300 m and almost all of the regionally endemic species are cool-adapted upland species (Nix and Switzer 1991, Williams et al. 1996).
7 citations