Preface to the Princeton Landmarks in Biology Edition vii Preface xi Symbols Used xiii 1. The Importance of Islands 3 2. Area and Number of Speicies 8 3. Further Explanations of the Area-Diversity Pattern 19 4. The Strategy of Colonization 68 5. Invasibility and the Variable Niche 94 6. Stepping Stones and Biotic Exchange 123 7. Evolutionary Changes Following Colonization 145 8. Prospect 181 Glossary 185 References 193 Index 201

The Theory of Island Biogeography

There is now ample evidence of the ecological impacts of recent climate change, from polar terrestrial to tropical marine environments. The responses of both flora and fauna span an array of ecosystems and organizational hierarchies, from the species to the community levels. Despite continued uncertainty as to community and ecosystem trajectories under global change, our review exposes a coherent pattern of ecological change across systems. Although we are only at an early stage in the projected trends of global warming, ecological responses to recent climate change are already clearly visible.

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Ecological responses to recent climate change.

Ecological changes in the phenology and distribution of plants and animals are occurring in all well-studied marine, freshwater, and terrestrial groups These observed changes are heavily biased in the directions predicted from global warming and have been linked to local or regional climate change through correlations between climate and biological variation, field and laboratory experiments, and physiological research Range-restricted species, particularly polar and mountaintop species, show severe range contractions and have been the first groups in which entire species have gone extinct due to recent climate change Tropical coral reefs and amphibians have been most negatively affected Predator-prey and plant-insect interactions have been disrupted when interacting species have responded differently to warming Evolutionary adaptations to warmer conditions have occurred in the interiors of species’ ranges, and resource use and dispersal have evolved rapidly at expanding range margins Observed genetic shifts modulate local effects of climate change, but there is little evidence that they will mitigate negative effects at the species level

https://www.fws.gov/southwest/es/documents/R2ES/LitCited/LPC_2012/Parmesan_2006.pdf

Ecological and Evolutionary Responses to Recent Climate Change

Climate change over the past approximately 30 years has produced numerous shifts in the distributions and abundances of species and has been implicated in one species-level extinction. Using projections of species' distributions for future climate scenarios, we assess extinction risks for sample regions that cover some 20% of the Earth's terrestrial surface. Exploring three approaches in which the estimated probability of extinction shows a power-law relationship with geographical range size, we predict, on the basis of mid-range climate-warming scenarios for 2050, that 15-37% of species in our sample of regions and taxa will be 'committed to extinction'. When the average of the three methods and two dispersal scenarios is taken, minimal climate-warming scenarios produce lower projections of species committed to extinction ( approximately 18%) than mid-range ( approximately 24%) and maximum-change ( approximately 35%) scenarios. These estimates show the importance of rapid implementation of technologies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and strategies for carbon sequestration.

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Extinction risk from climate change

Global energy consumption is projected to increase, even in the face of substantial declines in energy intensity, at least 2-fold by midcentury relative to the present because of population and economic growth. This demand could be met, in principle, from fossil energy resources, particularly coal. However, the cumulative nature of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere demands that holding atmospheric CO2 levels to even twice their preanthropogenic values by midcentury will require invention, development, and deployment of schemes for carbon-neutral energy production on a scale commensurate with, or larger than, the entire present-day energy supply from all sources combined. Among renewable energy resources, solar energy is by far the largest exploitable resource, providing more energy in 1 hour to the earth than all of the energy consumed by humans in an entire year. In view of the intermittency of insolation, if solar energy is to be a major primary energy source, it must be stored and dispatched on demand to the end user. An especially attractive approach is to store solar-converted energy in the form of chemical bonds, i.e., in a photosynthetic process at a year-round average efficiency significantly higher than current plants or algae, to reduce land-area requirements. Scientific challenges involved with this process include schemes to capture and convert solar energy and then store the energy in the form of chemical bonds, producing oxygen from water and a reduced fuel such as hydrogen, methane, methanol, or other hydrocarbon species.

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Powering the planet: Chemical challenges in solar energy utilization

For about a century the academic community - or at least a segment of it - has been aware of the possibility that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning and other human activities could significantly alter global climate and thus become a major societal problem. Now, however, the CO2 issue is frequently reported - often in ominous tones - in the popular press, and its implications have even penetrated to the halls of Parliaments and the U.S. Congress. [1] What causes the climate to change - and the potential contribution of carbon dioxide - is self-evidently an important problem for climatologists and other environmental scientists. But why should the “average citizen” - or his or her elected representatives - worry about the CO2 issue? Food production, which depends significantly on both climate and carbon dioxide per se, is one such reason.

CO2, Climate and Society: A Brief Overview

Stephen Schneider explores what a world with 1,000 parts per million of CO2 in its atmosphere might look like.

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The worst-case scenario

(2001). A Constructive Deconstruction of Deconstructionists: A Response to Demeritt. Annals of the Association of American Geographers: Vol. 91, No. 2, pp. 338-344.

A Constructive Deconstruction of Deconstructionists: A Response to Demeritt

Ice ages and orbital variations: Some simple theory and modeling

In a series of January experiments, prescribed changes of 2 K to the ocean surface temperatures of the NCAR GCM are imposed either globally or in one of two zonal strips centered at 5°S and 15°N. The global perturbations cause a global response in 3 km cloudiness of opposite sign to the surface temperature change, whereas a warm surface temperature perturbation at 15°N, under the subsiding branch of the Hadley cell, causes a cloudiness increase over the strip and smaller cloudiness decreases in zones adjacent to the strip. On the other hand, a 2 K strip placed at 5°S under the ascending branch of the Hadley cell causes little cloudiness response over the strip, but a statistically significant cloudiness decrease in adjacent zones. It is concluded that, in addition to a term which accounts for the effects on global cloudiness of global temperature changes, a comparably important additional term is needed to compute the global cloudiness feedback problem. This additional term integrates the local c...

Stephen H. Schneider

Papers

CO2, Climate and Society: A Brief Overview

The worst-case scenario

A Constructive Deconstruction of Deconstructionists: A Response to Demeritt

Ice ages and orbital variations: Some simple theory and modeling

Cloudiness as a Climatic Feedback Mechanism: Effects on Cloud Amounts of Prescribed Global and Regional Surface Temperature Changes in the NCAR GCM