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

Climate and History. Edited by Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb. Pp.280. Hbk ISBN 0-691-05331-6; pbk ISBN 0-691-00787-X. (Princeton University Press: 1981.) Hbk £14.90, $26; pbk £4.40, $7.75. Climate and History: Studies in Past Climates and Their Impact on Man. Edited by T. M. L. Wigley, M. J. Ingram and G. Farmer. Pp.530. ISBN 0-521-23902-8. (Cambridge University Press: 1982.) £30, $59.95.

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Beginnings for historical climatology

With this issue, Climatic Change inaugurates a new section, Climatic Change Letters. Climatic Change Letters has a substantive scope that is similar to Climatic Change, but aims to provide a vehicle for rapid publication. Climatic Change is a journal of record for the research community that focuses on climatic variability and change from a range of disciplinary perspectives, with ample room for detailed presentation and discussion of implications. Climatic Change Letters publishes brief articles in the style of an announcement of new findings that would be of immediate and compelling interest to the same research and policy community. Submissions are limited to those where the necessary information may be presented within approximately four journal pages along with a modest amount of supplementary online material. Editorial decisions will be made in collaboration with members of the Climatic Change Letters Advisory Board (see http://www.springer.com/earth+sciences/ meteorology?SGWID=0-10009-12-565099-0 for a list of members of the advisory board and other details relevant to manuscript submission). Letters aims to publish manuscripts online within about 3 months of submission followed by a hardcopy edition 1–2 months later. The first six articles were published online in a single batch, which led to slightly longer publication times for some of them. In the future, letters will appear online individually, as soon as the usual preparations have been completed. Hardcopy versions of Climatic Change will contain a Letters section every other month, composed of up to eight articles. While this first batch of letters is simply the first six accepted and was not selected based on content, it does mirror the broad spectrum of research that has been the hallmark of Climatic Change, ranging from physical science of the climate system to

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Stephen H. Schneider

Papers

Beginnings for historical climatology

Climatic Change Letters inaugural editorial

Editorial: Three essays of remembrance on the life of Helmut Landsberg

The Climate for Greenhouse Policy in the U.S. and the Incorporation of Uncertainties into Integrated Assessments

?This issue completes the first two volumes...? An editorial