Climatic Risk and Distribution Atlas of European Bumblebees
18 Feb 2015-Vol. 10, Iss: 10, pp 1-236
TL;DR: In this paper, maps depicting potential risks of climate change for bumble bees are shown together with informative summary statistics, ecological background information and a picture of each European species, thanks to the EU FP7 project STEP, the authors gathered over one million bumblebee records from all over Europe.
Abstract: Bumble bees represent one of the most important groups of pollinators. In addition to their ecological and economic relevance , they are also a highly charismatic group which can help to increase the interest of people in realizing, enjoying and conserving natural systems. However, like most animals, bum-ble bees are sensitive to climate. In this atlas, maps depicting potential risks of climate change for bumble bees are shown together with informative summary statistics, ecological background information and a picture of each European species. Thanks to the EU FP7 project STEP, the authors gathered over one million bumblebee records from all over Europe. Based on these data, they modelled the current climatic niche for almost all European species (56 species) and projected future climatically suitable conditions using three climate change scenarios for the years 2050 and 2100. While under a moderate change scenario only 3 species are projected to be at the verge of extinction by 2100, 14 species are at high risk under an intermediate change scenario. Under a most severe change scenario as many as 25 species are projected to lose almost all of their climatically suitable area, while a total of 53 species (77% of the 69 European species) would lose the main part of their suitable area. Climatic risks for bumblebees can be extremely high, depending on the future development of human society, and the corresponding effects on the climate. Strong mitigation strategies are needed to preserve this important species group and to ensure the sustainable provision of pollination services, to which they considerably contribute. On the front cover: Bombus hyperboreus, an Arctic bumblebee species that is threatened by global warming
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TL;DR: This review synthesizes what is currently understood about the taxonomic diversity of organisms that are known to act as pollinators; their distribution in both deep time and present space; the importance of their diversity for ecological function (including agro-ecology); changes to diversity and abundance over more recent timescales, including introduction of non-native species.
Abstract: By facilitating plant reproduction, pollinators perform a crucial ecological function that supports the majority of the world's plant diversity, and associated organisms, and a significant fraction of global agriculture Thus, pollinators are simultaneously vital to supporting both natural ecosystems and human food security, which is a unique position for such a diverse group of organisms The past two decades have seen unprecedented interest in pollinators and pollination ecology, stimulated in part by concerns about the decline of pollinator abundance and diversity in some parts of the world This review synthesizes what is currently understood about the taxonomic diversity of organisms that are known to act as pollinators; their distribution in both deep time and present space; the importance of their diversity for ecological function (including agro-ecology); changes to diversity and abundance over more recent timescales, including introduction of non-native species; and a discussion of arguments for
357 citations
Cites background from "Climatic Risk and Distribution Atla..."
...This is not the only example: Rasmont et al. (2015) also showed that the Asian Bombus schrencki has expanded westward as far as Poland and Finland, López-Uribe & Cane (2016) documented the expansion of a specialist squash bee (Peponapis pruinosa) in parallel with crop domestication, and Russo…...
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...According to Rasmont et al. (2015), the expansion of B. hypnorum into Britain was just the next step in an ongoing increase in this Eurasian-wide species that has even made it to Iceland....
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...This genus has been the subject of detailed scenario modeling in the “Climatic Risk and Distribution Atlas of European Bumblebees” (Rasmont et al. 2015)....
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TL;DR: The method developed in this study permits spatially explicit predictions of climate change–related population extinction-colonization dynamics within species that explains observed patterns of geographical range loss and expansion across continents.
Abstract: Climate change could increase species' extinction risk as temperatures and precipitation begin to exceed species' historically observed tolerances. Using long-term data for 66 bumble bee species across North America and Europe, we tested whether this mechanism altered likelihoods of bumble bee species' extinction or colonization. Increasing frequency of hotter temperatures predicts species' local extinction risk, chances of colonizing a new area, and changing species richness. Effects are independent of changing land uses. The method developed in this study permits spatially explicit predictions of climate change-related population extinction-colonization dynamics within species that explains observed patterns of geographical range loss and expansion across continents. Increasing frequencies of temperatures that exceed historically observed tolerances help explain widespread bumble bee species decline. This mechanism may also contribute to biodiversity loss more generally.
338 citations
University of Guelph1, University of Freiburg2, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ3, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg4, Polish Academy of Sciences5, University of Marburg6, Technische Universität Darmstadt7, Goethe University Frankfurt8, University of Canterbury9, University of Osnabrück10, University of Kiel11, Natural History Museum12, University of Mons13, University of Novi Sad14, University of Queensland15
TL;DR: It is discovered that animal species that interact with a low diversity of plant species have narrow climatic niches and are most vulnerable to climate change.
Abstract: Impacts of climate change on individual species are increasingly well documented, but we lack understanding of how these effects propagate through ecological communities. Here we combine species distribution models with ecological network analyses to test potential impacts of climate change on >700 plant and animal species in pollination and seed-dispersal networks from central Europe. We discover that animal species that interact with a low diversity of plant species have narrow climatic niches and are most vulnerable to climate change. In contrast, biotic specialization of plants is not related to climatic niche breadth and vulnerability. A simulation model incorporating different scenarios of species coextinction and capacities for partner switches shows that projected plant extinctions under climate change are more likely to trigger animal coextinctions than vice versa. This result demonstrates that impacts of climate change on biodiversity can be amplified via extinction cascades from plants to animals in ecological networks.
173 citations
TL;DR: There is evidence that habitat loss, changing climate, pathogen transmission, invasion of nonnative species, and pesticides, operating individually and in combination, negatively impact bumble bee health, and that effects may depend on species and locality.
Abstract: Bumble bees (Bombus) are unusually important pollinators, with approximately 260 wild species native to all biogeographic regions except sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. As they are ...
156 citations
Cites background from "Climatic Risk and Distribution Atla..."
...Among wild bees, bumble bee (Bombus) decline has been most studied (Figure 1), with multiple surveys in Europe (13, 143), North America (21, 27, 78), and South America (2, 116) revealing reductions in distribution and relative abundance of many species over the course of the century....
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TL;DR: Climate change will pose diverse challenges for pollination this century, and identifying and addressing these challenges will help to mitigate impacts, and avoid a scenario whereby plants and pollinators are in the ‘wrong place at the wrong time’.
Abstract: Climate change will pose diverse challenges for pollination this century. Identifying and addressing these challenges will help to mitigate impacts, and avoid a scenario whereby plants and pollinators are in the ‘wrong place at the wrong time’.
97 citations
References
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a procedure for having two or more judges independently categorize a sample of units and determine the degree, significance, and significance of the units. But they do not discuss the extent to which these judgments are reproducible, i.e., reliable.
Abstract: CONSIDER Table 1. It represents in its formal characteristics a situation which arises in the clinical-social-personality areas of psychology, where it frequently occurs that the only useful level of measurement obtainable is nominal scaling (Stevens, 1951, pp. 2526), i.e. placement in a set of k unordered categories. Because the categorizing of the units is a consequence of some complex judgment process performed by a &dquo;two-legged meter&dquo; (Stevens, 1958), it becomes important to determine the extent to which these judgments are reproducible, i.e., reliable. The procedure which suggests itself is that of having two (or more) judges independently categorize a sample of units and determine the degree, significance, and
34,965 citations
"Climatic Risk and Distribution Atla..." refers methods in this paper
...Most widely used are Cohen’s Kappa (Cohen, 1960) and the Area Under the Receiver Characteristic Curve (AUC; Hanley & McNeil, 1982)....
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DOI•
27 Oct 2010
20,272 citations
"Climatic Risk and Distribution Atla..." refers background or methods in this paper
...Further, a collaboration with the IUCN resulted in a first Red List of European bees (Rasmont et al., 2013)....
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...Thanks to the STEP project, the mapping and the IUCN assessments of all European bumblebee species have been published (Rasmont et al., 2013; Rasmont & Iserbyt, 2014)....
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TL;DR: A representation and interpretation of the area under a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve obtained by the "rating" method, or by mathematical predictions based on patient characteristics, is presented and it is shown that in such a setting the area represents the probability that a randomly chosen diseased subject is (correctly) rated or ranked with greater suspicion than a random chosen non-diseased subject.
Abstract: A representation and interpretation of the area under a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve obtained by the "rating" method, or by mathematical predictions based on patient characteristics, is presented. It is shown that in such a setting the area represents the probability that a randomly chosen diseased subject is (correctly) rated or ranked with greater suspicion than a randomly chosen non-diseased subject. Moreover, this probability of a correct ranking is the same quantity that is estimated by the already well-studied nonparametric Wilcoxon statistic. These two relationships are exploited to (a) provide rapid closed-form expressions for the approximate magnitude of the sampling variability, i.e., standard error that one uses to accompany the area under a smoothed ROC curve, (b) guide in determining the size of the sample required to provide a sufficiently reliable estimate of this area, and (c) determine how large sample sizes should be to ensure that one can statistically detect difference...
19,398 citations
TL;DR: A diagnostic fingerprint of temporal and spatial ‘sign-switching’ responses uniquely predicted by twentieth century climate trends is defined and generates ‘very high confidence’ (as laid down by the IPCC) that climate change is already affecting living systems.
Abstract: Causal attribution of recent biological trends to climate change is complicated because non-climatic influences dominate local, short-term biological changes. Any underlying signal from climate change is likely to be revealed by analyses that seek systematic trends across diverse species and geographic regions; however, debates within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reveal several definitions of a 'systematic trend'. Here, we explore these differences, apply diverse analyses to more than 1,700 species, and show that recent biological trends match climate change predictions. Global meta-analyses documented significant range shifts averaging 6.1 km per decade towards the poles (or metres per decade upward), and significant mean advancement of spring events by 2.3 days per decade. We define a diagnostic fingerprint of temporal and spatial 'sign-switching' responses uniquely predicted by twentieth century climate trends. Among appropriate long-term/large-scale/multi-species data sets, this diagnostic fingerprint was found for 279 species. This suite of analyses generates 'very high confidence' (as laid down by the IPCC) that climate change is already affecting living systems.
9,761 citations
"Climatic Risk and Distribution Atla..." refers background in this paper
...Beside extreme climatic events, gradually changing conditions can also seriously impact species (e.g. Parmesan & Yohe, 2003)....
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...On the one hand, gradually changing climatic conditions can lead to shifts in species ranges which has been observed for many species (e.g. Parmesan & Yohe, 2003; Chen et al., 2011) including bees (e.g. Kuhlmann et al., 2012)....
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TL;DR: A review of predictive habitat distribution modeling is presented, which shows that a wide array of models has been developed to cover aspects as diverse as biogeography, conservation biology, climate change research, and habitat or species management.
6,748 citations