Regional and global climate risks for reef corals: Incorporating species-specific vulnerability and exposure to climate hazards

Climate change is driving rapid and widespread erosion of the environmental conditions that formerly supported species persistence. Existing projections of climate change typically focus on forecasts of acute environmental anomalies and global extinction risks. The current projections also frequently consider all species within a broad taxonomic group together without differentiating species-specific patterns. Consequently, we still know little about the explicit dimensions of climate risk (i.e., species-specific vulnerability, exposure and hazard) that are vital for predicting future biodiversity responses (e.g., adaptation, migration) and developing management and conservation strategies. Here, we use reef corals as model organisms (n = 741 species) to project the extent of regional and global climate risks of marine organisms into the future. We characterise species-specific vulnerability based on the global geographic range and historical environmental conditions (1900–1994) of each coral species within their ranges, and quantify the projected exposure to climate hazard beyond the historical conditions as climate risk. We show that many coral species will experience a complete loss of pre-modern climate analogs at the regional scale and across their entire distributional ranges, and such exposure to hazardous conditions are predicted to pose substantial regional and global climate risks to reef corals. Although high-latitude regions may provide climate refugia for some tropical corals until the mid-21st century, they will not become a universal haven for all corals. Notably, high-latitude specialists and species with small geographic ranges remain particularly vulnerable as they tend to possess limited capacities to avoid climate risks (e.g., via adaptive and migratory responses). Predicted climate risks are amplified substantially under the SSP5-8.5 compared with the SSP1-2.6 scenario, highlighting the need for stringent emission controls. Our projections of both regional and global climate risks offer unique opportunities to facilitate climate action at spatial scales relevant to conservation and management.     

气候变化背景下中国农业气候资源变化Ⅴ.宁夏农业气候资源变化特征

基于1961—2009年宁夏21个气象站点的气象资料,分析了宁夏各区农业气候资源的时空变化趋势.结果表明：研究期间,宁夏各地气温逐渐升高,呈北高南低的空间分布特征,年均气温的气候倾向率为0.4 ℃·(10 a)^-1;大部分地区年降水量呈逐渐减少趋势,年降水量的气候倾向率为4.26 mm·(10 a)^-1;无霜期和作物生长季天数随着气候变暖逐渐延长;≥10 ℃积温在3200 ℃·d以上的区域向南扩展,宁夏适宜种植中晚熟水稻的区域有所扩大;2001—2009年,宁夏大部分地区适宜种植冬小麦,全区各地几乎都适宜种植春小麦;宁夏南部山区各地7月平均气温≤20 ℃的区域面积逐渐缩小,适宜种植马铃薯的地域也随之缩小.     

植物物候与气候研究进展

植物物候及其变化是多个环境因子综合影响的结果,其中气候是最重要、最活跃的环境因子。主要从气候环境角度分析了植物物候与气候以及气候变化间的相互关系,概述了国内外有关植物物候及物候模拟等方面的研究进展。表明,温度是影响物候变化最重要的因子;同时,水分成为胁迫因子时对物候的影响也十分重要。近50a左右,世界范围内的植物物候呈现出了春季物候提前,秋季物候推迟或略有推迟的特征,从而导致了多数植物生长季节的延长,并成为全球物候变化的趋势。全球气候变暖改变了植物开始和结束生长的日期,其中冬季、春季气温的升高使植物的春季物候提前是植物生长季延长的主要原因。目前对物候学的研究方向主要集中在探讨物候与气候变化之间的关系,而模型模拟是定量研究气候变化与植物物候之间关系的重要方式,国内外已经开发出多种物候模型来分析气候驱动与物候响应之间的因果关系。另外遥感资料的应用也为物候模型研究提供了新的方向。物候机理研究、物候与气候关系以及物候模型研究将是研究的重点。     

气候变化背景下中国农业气候资源变化V.宁夏农业气候资源变化特征

基于1961-2009年宁夏21个气象站点的气象资料,分析了宁夏各区农业气候资源的时空变化趋势.结果表明:研究期间,宁夏各地气温逐渐升高,呈北高南低的空间分布特征,年均气温的气候倾向率为0.4℃·(10 a)-1;大部分地区年降水量呈逐渐减少趋势,年降水量的气候倾向率为4.26 mm·(10 a)-1;无霜期和作物生长季天数随着气候变暖逐渐延长;≥10℃积温在3200℃·d以上的区域向南扩展,宁夏适宜种植中晚熟水稻的区域有所扩大;2001-2009年,宁夏大部分地区适宜种植冬小麦,全区各地几乎都适宜种植春小麦;宁夏南部山区各地7月平均气温≤20℃的区域面积逐渐缩小,适宜种植马铃薯的地域也随之缩小.     

Human land uses reduce climate connectivity across North America

Climate connectivity, the ability of a landscape to promote or hinder the movement of organisms in response to a changing climate, is contingent on multiple factors including the distance organisms need to move to track suitable climate over time (i.e. climate velocity) and the resistance they experience along such routes. An additional consideration which has received less attention is that human land uses increase resistance to movement or alter movement routes and thus influence climate connectivity. Here we evaluate the influence of human land uses on climate connectivity across North America by comparing two climate connectivity scenarios, one considering climate change in isolation and the other considering climate change and human land uses. In doing so, we introduce a novel metric of climate connectivity, ‘human exposure’, that quantifies the cumulative exposure to human activities that organisms may encounter as they shift their ranges in response to climate change. We also delineate potential movement routes and evaluate whether the protected area network supports movement corridors better than non‐protected lands. We found that when incorporating human land uses, climate connectivity decreased; climate velocity increased on average by 0.3 km/year and cumulative climatic resistance increased for ~83% of the continent. Moreover, ~96% of movement routes in North America must contend with human land uses to some degree. In the scenario that evaluated climate change in isolation, we found that protected areas do not support climate corridors at a higher rate than non‐protected lands across North America. However, variability is evident, as many ecoregions contain protected areas that exhibit both more and less representation of climate corridors compared to non‐protected lands. Overall, our study indicates that previous evaluations of climate connectivity underestimate climate change exposure because they do not account for human impacts.     

Designing ecological climate change impact assessments to reflect key climatic drivers

Identifying the climatic drivers of an ecological system is a key step in assessing its vulnerability to climate change. The climatic dimensions to which a species or system is most sensitive – such as means or extremes – can guide methodological decisions for projections of ecological impacts and vulnerabilities. However, scientific workflows for combining climate projections with ecological models have received little explicit attention. We review Global Climate Model (GCM) performance along different dimensions of change and compare frameworks for integrating GCM output into ecological models. In systems sensitive to climatological means, it is straightforward to base ecological impact assessments on mean projected changes from several GCMs. Ecological systems sensitive to climatic extremes may benefit from what we term the ‘model space’ approach: a comparison of ecological projections based on simulated climate from historical and future time periods. This approach leverages the experimental framework used in climate modeling, in which historical climate simulations serve as controls for future projections. Moreover, it can capture projected changes in the intensity and frequency of climatic extremes, rather than assuming that future means will determine future extremes. Given the recent emphasis on the ecological impacts of climatic extremes, the strategies we describe will be applicable across species and systems. We also highlight practical considerations for the selection of climate models and data products, emphasizing that the spatial resolution of the climate change signal is generally coarser than the grid cell size of downscaled climate model output. Our review illustrates how an understanding of how climate model outputs are derived and downscaled can improve the selection and application of climatic data used in ecological modeling.     

Solar history and human affairs

Historical research at different time scales from 10s to 1000s of years suggests that solar variation may have influences on global climate. Climate change has had significant impacts on cultures during these periods. Very high solar output during the Medieval Optimum would be expected to have particularly large impacts on peoples of that time as sunspot numbers are thought to have reached one third again any values observed in the current century. Certain other impacts can be inferred from modern populations. For example, the higher parts of the solar cycle are associated with greater incidence of skin melanoma.     

The climate velocity of the contiguous United States during the 20th century

Rapid climate change has the potential to affect economic, social, and biological systems. A concern for species conservation is whether or not the rate of on‐going climate change will exceed the rate at which species can adapt or move to suitable environments. Here we assess the climate velocity (both climate displacement rate and direction) for minimum temperature, actual evapotranspiration, and climatic water deficit (deficit) over the contiguous US during the 20th century (1916–2005). Vectors for these variables demonstrate a complex mosaic of patterns that vary spatially and temporally and are dependent on the spatial resolution of input climate data. Velocities for variables that characterize the climatic water balance were similar in magnitude to that derived from temperature, but frequently differed in direction resulting in the divergence of climate vectors through time. Our results strain expectations of poleward and upslope migration over the past century due to warming. Instead, they suggest that a more full understanding of changes in multiple climatic factors, in addition to temperature, may help explain unexpected or conflicting observational evidence of climate‐driven species range shifts during the 20th century.     

Range expansion during the Pleistocene drove morphological radiation of the fir genus (Abies,Pinaceae) in the Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau and Himalayas

Range expansion caused by climate oscillations in the past probably promoted morphological radiation in a few plant groups. In this study, we aim to test this hypothesis through phylogeographical analysis of the cold‐tolerant fir genus (Abies) in the Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau (QTP) and Himalayas, where it comprises 12 described species. We examined sequence variation in two maternally inherited mitochondrial (mt) DNA fragments (nad5‐4 and nad7‐1) and two paternally inherited plastid DNA fragments (trnS‐G and trnL‐F) for 733 individuals from 75 populations of the species in a monophyletic group. Only six mtDNA haplotypes were recovered, but five were shared between multiple species and one occurred at a high frequency, providing strong evidence of range expansion. Forty‐three plastid DNA haplotypes were detected, 19 of which were shared between species and three occurred at high frequency. Network, mismatch and Bayesian skyline plot analyses of all plastid DNA haplotypes from this clade clearly suggested range expansion. This expansion was dated as having occurred during the longest and most extensive glaciation in the Pleistocene. Our results therefore supported the range expansion hypothesis for this clade of Abies during the Pleistocene; expansion probably drove the morphological radiation of the clade in the QTP and Himalayas, although it remains unclear whether the different morphotypes should be acknowledged as independent, reproductively isolated species. © 2015 The Linnean Society of London, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2015, 179 , 444–453.     

Implications of climate change for agricultural productivity in the early twenty-first century

This paper reviews recent literature concerning a wide range of processes through which climate change could potentially impact global-scale agricultural productivity, and presents projections of changes in relevant meteorological, hydrological and plant physiological quantities from a climate model ensemble to illustrate key areas of uncertainty. Few global-scale assessments have been carried out, and these are limited in their ability to capture the uncertainty in climate projections, and omit potentially important aspects such as extreme events and changes in pests and diseases. There is a lack of clarity on how climate change impacts on drought are best quantified from an agricultural perspective, with different metrics giving very different impressions of future risk. The dependence of some regional agriculture on remote rainfall, snowmelt and glaciers adds to the complexity. Indirect impacts via sea-level rise, storms and diseases have not been quantified. Perhaps most seriously, there is high uncertainty in the extent to which the direct effects of CO₂ rise on plant physiology will interact with climate change in affecting productivity. At present, the aggregate impacts of climate change on global-scale agricultural productivity cannot be reliably quantified.     

气候变化背景下中国农业气候资源变化Ⅸ.中国农业气候资源时空变化特征

利用中国558个气象台站1961-2007年地面气象观测资料,分析了不同区域农业气候资源变化的差异,并分析和比较了1961-1980年(时段Ⅰ)和1981-2007年(时段Ⅱ)的农业气候资源变化特征.结果表明： 与时段Ⅰ相比,时段Ⅱ中国年均气温增加了0.6 ℃,喜凉作物生长期内≥0 ℃积温和喜温作物生长期内≥10 ℃积温分别平均增加123.3和125.9℃·d;1961-2007年,年均气温增幅最大的区域是东北地区,喜温作物生长期内≥10 ℃积温增幅最大的是华南地区.对全国而言,与时段Ⅰ相比,时段Ⅱ在全年、喜凉和喜温作物生长期内日照时数分别减少了125.7、32.2和53.6 h;1961-2007年,长江中下游地区年日照时数的减幅最多,喜凉和喜温作物生长期内日照时数减少量最大的地区分别是华北和华南地区;在全年、喜凉和喜温作物生长期内,中国的降水量和参考作物蒸散量总体均表现为减少趋势,其中,华北地区在全年、喜凉和喜温作物生长期内降水量的减幅均最大,长江中下游地区参考作物蒸散量在全年和喜温作物生长期内的减幅最大,西北地区参考作物蒸散量在喜凉作物生长期内的减幅最大.研究期间,中国气候在全年和喜温作物生长期内总体表现为暖干趋势,其中,喜温作物生长期内西南、华北和东北地区为暖干趋势,长江中下游、西北和华南地区为暖湿趋势,喜凉作物生长期内华北地区为暖干趋势,西北地区为暖湿趋势.     

Effects of climate extremes on the terrestrial carbon cycle: concepts,processes and potential future impacts

Extreme droughts, heat waves, frosts, precipitation, wind storms and other climate extremes may impact the structure, composition and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, and thus carbon cycling and its feedbacks to the climate system. Yet, the interconnected avenues through which climate extremes drive ecological and physiological processes and alter the carbon balance are poorly understood. Here, we review the literature on carbon cycle relevant responses of ecosystems to extreme climatic events. Given that impacts of climate extremes are considered disturbances, we assume the respective general disturbance‐induced mechanisms and processes to also operate in an extreme context. The paucity of well‐defined studies currently renders a quantitative meta‐analysis impossible, but permits us to develop a deductive framework for identifying the main mechanisms (and coupling thereof) through which climate extremes may act on the carbon cycle. We find that ecosystem responses can exceed the duration of the climate impacts via lagged effects on the carbon cycle. The expected regional impacts of future climate extremes will depend on changes in the probability and severity of their occurrence, on the compound effects and timing of different climate extremes, and on the vulnerability of each land‐cover type modulated by management. Although processes and sensitivities differ among biomes, based on expert opinion, we expect forests to exhibit the largest net effect of extremes due to their large carbon pools and fluxes, potentially large indirect and lagged impacts, and long recovery time to regain previous stocks. At the global scale, we presume that droughts have the strongest and most widespread effects on terrestrial carbon cycling. Comparing impacts of climate extremes identified via remote sensing vs. ground‐based observational case studies reveals that many regions in the (sub‐)tropics are understudied. Hence, regional investigations are needed to allow a global upscaling of the impacts of climate extremes on global carbon–climate feedbacks.     

Multiple axes of ecological vulnerability to climate change

Observed ecological responses to climate change are highly individualistic across species and locations, and understanding the drivers of this variability is essential for management and conservation efforts. While it is clear that differences in exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity all contribute to heterogeneity in climate change vulnerability, predicting these features at macroecological scales remains a critical challenge. We explore multiple drivers of heterogeneous vulnerability across the distributions of 96 vegetation types of the ecologically diverse western US, using data on observed climate trends from 1948 to 2014 to highlight emerging patterns of change. We ask three novel questions about factors potentially shaping vulnerability across the region: (a) How does sensitivity to different climate variables vary geographically and across vegetation classes? (b) How do multivariate climate exposure patterns interact with these sensitivities to shape vulnerability patterns? (c) How different are these vulnerability patterns according to three widely implemented vulnerability paradigms—niche novelty (decline in modeled suitability), temporal novelty (standardized anomaly), and spatial novelty (inbound climate velocity)—each of which uses a distinct frame of reference to quantify climate departure? We propose that considering these three novelty paradigms in combination could help improve our understanding and prediction of heterogeneous climate change responses, and we discuss the distinct climate adaptation strategies connected with different combinations of high and low novelty across the three metrics. Our results reveal a diverse mosaic of climate change vulnerability signatures across the region's plant communities. Each of the above factors contributes strongly to this heterogeneity: climate variable sensitivity exhibits clear patterns across vegetation types, multivariate climate change data reveal highly diverse exposure signatures across locations, and the three novelty paradigms diverge widely in their climate change vulnerability predictions. Together, these results shed light on potential drivers of individualistic climate change responses and may help to inform effective management strategies.     

Protected areas not likely to serve as steppingstones for species undergoing climate-induced range shifts

Species across the planet are shifting their ranges to track suitable climate conditions in response to climate change. Given that protected areas have higher quality habitat and often harbor higher levels of biodiversity compared to unprotected lands, it is often assumed that protected areas can serve as steppingstones for species undergoing climate-induced range shifts. However, there are several factors that may impede successful range shifts among protected areas, including the distance that must be traveled, unfavorable human land uses and climate conditions along potential movement routes, and lack of analogous climates. Through a species-agnostic lens, we evaluate these factors across the global terrestrial protected area network as measures of climate connectivity, which is defined as the ability of a landscape to facilitate or impede climate-induced movement. We found that over half of protected land area and two-thirds of the number of protected units across the globe are at risk of climate connectivity failure, casting doubt on whether many species can successfully undergo climate-induced range shifts among protected areas. Consequently, protected areas are unlikely to serve as steppingstones for a large number of species under a warming climate. As species disappear from protected areas without commensurate immigration of species suited to the emerging climate (due to climate connectivity failure), many protected areas may be left with a depauperate suite of species under climate change. Our findings are highly relevant given recent pledges to conserve 30% of the planet by 2030 (30 × 30), underscore the need for innovative land management strategies that allow for species range shifts, and suggest that assisted colonization may be necessary to promote species that are adapted to the emerging climate.     

Why decadal to century timescale palaeoclimate data are needed to explain present‐day patterns of biological diversity and change

The current distribution of species, environmental conditions and their interactions represent only one snapshot of a planet that is continuously changing, in part due to human influences. To distinguish human impacts from natural factors, the magnitude and pace of climate shifts, since the Last Glacial Maximum, are often used to determine whether patterns of diversity today are artefacts of past climate change. In the absence of high‐temporal resolution palaeoclimate reconstructions, this is generally done by assuming that past climate change occurred at a linear pace between widely spaced (usually, ≥1,000 years) climate snapshots. We show here that this is a flawed assumption because regional climates have changed significantly across decades and centuries during glacial–interglacial cycles, likely causing rapid regional replacement of biota. We demonstrate how recent atmosphere‐ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) simulations of the climate of the past 21,000 years can provide credible estimates of the details of climate change on decadal to centennial timescales, showing that these details differ radically from what might be inferred from longer timescale information. High‐temporal resolution information can provide more meaningful estimates of the magnitude and pace of climate shifts, the location and timing of drivers of physiological stress, and the extent of novel climates. They also produce new opportunities to directly investigate whether short‐term climate variability is more important in shaping biodiversity patterns rather than gradual changes in long‐term climatic means. Together, these more accurate measures of past climate instability are likely to bring about a better understanding of the role of palaeoclimatic change and variability in shaping current macroecological patterns in many regions of the world.     

On the relationship of phenological strategy to ecological success: the case of broomsedge in Hawaii

Andropogon virginicus L. (broomsedge) is a perennial bunchgrass of temperate origin which was introduced to the Hawaiian Islands early in the 20th Century. Since its introduction broomsedge has become the dominant species of savanna vegetation on the windward sides of Oahu and Hawaii (the Big Island). Despite its ecological success, the phenology of broomsedge-especially the timing of its periods of active growth in the summer and dormancy (or semi-rest) in the winter-is not synchronized with the summer-dry, winter-wet moisture seasonality of its range in Hawaii. Rather, this species responds to a shortening-daylength cue by flowering in late autumn, and the onset of dormancy and the progression of subsequent phenophases seems to be mostly under endogenous control following the flowering response. The lack of synchronization between the onset of active growth by broomsedge and the onset of the rainy season does not conform to the specific assumption that the ecological dominance of the perennial bunchgrass life-form in savanna vegetation results from a coupling of phenological strategy to moisture seasonality. It also brings into question the more general assumption that a perfect coupling of phenology to the prevailing climatic conditions is a prerequisite for ecological success.