Vulnerability of the global terrestrial ecosystems to climate change

Climate change has far‐reaching impacts on ecosystems. Recent attempts to quantify such impacts focus on measuring exposure to climate change but largely ignore ecosystem resistance and resilience, which may also affect the vulnerability outcomes. In this study, the relative vulnerability of global terrestrial ecosystems to short‐term climate variability was assessed by simultaneously integrating exposure, sensitivity, and resilience at a high spatial resolution (0.05°). The results show that vulnerable areas are currently distributed primarily in plains. Responses to climate change vary among ecosystems and deserts and xeric shrublands are the most vulnerable biomes. Global vulnerability patterns are determined largely by exposure, while ecosystem sensitivity and resilience may exacerbate or alleviate external climate pressures at local scales; there is a highly significant negative correlation between exposure and sensitivity. Globally, 61.31% of the terrestrial vegetated area is capable of mitigating climate change impacts and those areas are concentrated in polar regions, boreal forests, tropical rainforests, and intact forests. Under current sensitivity and resilience conditions, vulnerable areas are projected to develop in high Northern Hemisphere latitudes in the future. The results suggest that integrating all three aspects of vulnerability (exposure, sensitivity, and resilience) may offer more comprehensive and spatially explicit adaptation strategies to reduce the impacts of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems.     

基于潜在植被的中国陆地生态系统对气候变化的脆弱性定量评价

 陆地生态系统对气候变化的响应及其脆弱性评价研究是当前全球变化领域的重要内容之一。该研究在生态系统过程模型的基础上,耦合了潜在 植被对气候变化的动态响应,模拟气候变化对潜在植被分布格局和生态系统主要功能的影响,以潜在植被的变化次数和变化方 向定义植被分布 对气候变化的敏感性和适应性,以生态系统功能特征量的年际变率及其变化趋势定义生态系统功能对气候变化的敏感性和适应性,进而对生态 系统的脆弱性进行定量评价,分析不同气候条件下我国陆地生态系统的脆弱性分布格局及其区域特点。结果表明,我国自然生态系统气候脆弱 性的总体特点为南低北高、东低西高,气候变化将会增加系统的脆弱性。采用政府间气候变化委员会排放情景特别报告国内和区域资源情景, 即IPCC-SRES-A2气候情景进行的预测模拟表明,到21世纪末我国不脆弱的生态系统比例将减少22%左右,高度脆弱和极度脆弱的生态系统所占的 比例较当前气候条件下分别减少1.3%和0.4%。气候变化对我国陆地生态系统的脆弱性分布格局影响不大。不同气候条件下,高度脆弱和极度脆 弱的自然生态系统主要分布在我国内蒙古、东北和西北等地区的生态过渡带上及荒漠-草地生态系统中。总体而言,华南及西南大部分地区的生 态系统脆弱性将随气候变化而有所增加,而华北及东北地区则有所减小。     

Trait‐based climate vulnerability assessments in data‐rich systems: An application to eastern Bering Sea fish and invertebrate stocks

Trait‐based climate vulnerability assessments based on expert evaluation have emerged as a rapid tool to assess biological vulnerability when detailed correlative or mechanistic studies are not feasible. Trait‐based assessments typically view vulnerability as a combination of sensitivity and exposure to climate change. However, in some locations, a substantial amount of information may exist on system productivity and environmental conditions (both current and projected), with potential disparities in the information available for data‐rich and data‐poor stocks. Incorporating this level of detailed information poses challenges when conducting, and communicating uncertainty from, rapid vulnerability assessments. We applied a trait‐based vulnerability assessment to 36 fish and invertebrate stocks in the eastern Bering Sea (EBS), a data‐rich ecosystem. In recent years, the living marine resources of the EBS and Aleutian Islands have supported fisheries worth more than US $1 billion of annual ex‐vessel value. Our vulnerability assessment uses projections (to 2039) from three downscaled climate models, and graphically characterizes the variation in climate projections between climate models and between seasons. Bootstrapping was used to characterize uncertainty in specific biological traits and environmental variables, and in the scores for sensitivity, exposure, and vulnerability. The sensitivity of EBS stocks to climate change ranged from “low” to “high,” but vulnerability ranged between “low” and “moderate” due to limited exposure to climate change. Comparison with more detailed studies reveals that water temperature is an important variable for projecting climate impacts on stocks such as walleye pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus), and sensitivity analyses revealed that modifying the rule for determining vulnerability increased the vulnerability scores. This study demonstrates the importance of considering several uncertainties (e.g., climate projections, biological, and model structure) when conducting climate vulnerability assessments, and can be extended in future research to consider the vulnerability of user groups dependent on these stocks.     

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.     

A global synthesis of climate vulnerability assessments on marine fisheries: Methods,scales, and knowledge co-production

Undertaking climate vulnerability assessments (CVAs) on marine fisheries is instrumental to the identification of regions, species, and stakeholders at risk of impacts from climate change, and the development of effective and targeted responses for fisheries adaptation. In this global literature review, we addressed three important questions to characterize fisheries CVAs: (i) what are the available approaches to develop CVAs in various social–ecological contexts, (ii) are different geographic scales and regions adequately represented, and (iii) how do diverse knowledge systems contribute to current understanding of vulnerability? As part of these general research efforts, we identified and characterized an inventory of frameworks and indicators that encompass a wide range of foci on ecological and socioeconomic dimensions of climate vulnerability on fisheries. Our analysis highlighted a large gap between countries with top research inputs and the most urgent adaptation needs. More research and resources are needed in low-income tropical countries to ensure existing inequities are not exacerbated. We also identified an uneven research focus across spatial scales and cautioned a possible scale mismatch between assessment and management needs. Drawing on this information, we catalog (1) a suite of research directions that could improve the utility and applicability of CVAs, particularly the examination of barriers and enabling conditions that influence the uptake of CVA results into management responses at multiple levels, (2) the lessons that have been learned from applications in data-limited regions, particularly the use of proxy indicators and knowledge co-production to overcome the problem of data deficiency, and (3) opportunities for wider applications, for example diversifying the use of vulnerability indicators in broader monitoring and management schemes. This information is used to provide a set of recommendations that could advance meaningful CVA practices for fisheries management and promote effective translation of climate vulnerability into adaptation actions.     

Species vulnerability to climate change: impacts on spatial conservation priorities and species representation

Climate change may shrink and/or shift plant species ranges thereby increasing their vulnerability and requiring targeted conservation to facilitate adaptation. We quantified the vulnerability to climate change of plant species based on exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity and assessed the effects of including these components in complementarity‐based spatial conservation prioritisation. We modelled the vulnerability of 584 native plant species under three climate change scenarios in an 11.9 million hectare fragmented agricultural region in southern Australia. We represented exposure as species' geographical range under each climate change scenario as quantified using species distribution models. We calculated sensitivity as a function of the impact of climate change on species' geographical ranges. Using a dispersal kernel, we quantified adaptive capacity as species' ability to migrate to new geographical ranges under each climate change scenario. Using Zonation, we assessed the impact of individual components of vulnerability (exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity) on spatial conservation priorities and levels of species representation in priority areas under each climate change scenario. The full vulnerability framework proved an effective basis for identifying spatial conservation priorities under climate change. Including different dimensions of vulnerability had significant implications for spatial conservation priorities. Incorporating adaptive capacity increased the level of representation of most species. However, prioritising sensitive species reduced the representation of other species. We conclude that whilst taking an integrated approach to mitigating species vulnerability to climate change can ensure sensitive species are well‐represented in a conservation network, this can come at the cost of reduced representation of other species. Conservation planning decisions aimed at reducing species vulnerability to climate change need to be made in full cognisance of the sensitivity of spatial conservation priorities to individual components of vulnerability, and the trade‐offs associated with focussing on sensitive species.     

The exposure,sensitivity and vulnerability of natural vegetation in China to climate thermal variability (1901–2013): An indicator-based approach

Vulnerability assessments can be helpful in assessing the impact of climate change on natural ecosystems and are expected to support adaptation and/or mitigation strategies in the 21st century. A challenge when conducting such assessments is the integration of the multi-level properties and processes of ecosystems into an assessment framework. Focusing on the primary stresses of climate thermal variability (at both upper and lower extremes), this study proposes a quantitative indicator system—following the IPCC framework of vulnerability assessment—that assesses the impact of historical climate change, during 1901–2013, on the natural terrestrial vegetation types in China. The final output of the vulnerability assessment was expressed as a composite index, composed of ecosystem exposure, sensitivity and resilience to climate thermal change, and including biological, ecological and spatial traits of vegetation types in the assessment. The exposure to temperature variability was generally higher in January than in July, and higher in non-arborous vegetation types than forests. In contrast, sensitivity was higher for forests, wetlands and alpine tundra regions, especially for small areas and areas with scattered patterns. Original forests—especially those distributed in the north—had lower resilience than other vegetation types. The vulnerability of natural vegetation types in China to the temperature variability of the past century was very low to moderate, with a few exceptions, including tropical mangroves and the semi-arid to arid vegetation types in northwestern China, which had high vulnerability. Vulnerability was stronger in winter than in summer. Our results are generally in accord with the scenario-based projections on the geographical pattern of vegetation vulnerability to climate change, and revealed the difference caused by not considering moisture. The risks for these fragmented and narrow-range ecosystems are highlighted, and the importance of natural resilience is stressed for the assessment of vegetation vulnerability to climate change. Given the inadequate coverage of the natural reserve network in China (after the large investment in recent decades) found in the high-vulnerability vegetation types (with a few exceptions), the assessment of natural resilience of ecosystems could be critical for the optimal design of socio-economic strategies in response to the impacts of future climate change.     

Agriculture erases climate‐driven β‐diversity in Neotropical bird communities

Earth is experiencing multiple global changes that will, together, determine the fate of many species. Yet, how biological communities respond to concurrent stressors at local‐to‐regional scales remains largely unknown. In particular, understanding how local habitat conversion interacts with regional climate change to shape patterns in β‐diversity—differences among sites in their species compositions—is critical to forecast communities in the Anthropocene. Here, we study patterns in bird β‐diversity across land‐use and precipitation gradients in Costa Rica. We mapped forest cover, modeled regional precipitation, and collected data on bird community composition, vegetation structure, and tree diversity across 120 sites on 20 farms to answer three questions. First, do bird communities respond more strongly to changes in land use or climate in northwest Costa Rica? Second, does habitat conversion eliminate β‐diversity across climate gradients? Third, does regional climate control how communities respond to habitat conversion and, if so, how? After correcting for imperfect detection, we found that local land‐use determined community shifts along the climate gradient. In forests, bird communities were distinct between sites that differed in vegetation structure or precipitation. In agriculture, however, vegetation structure was more uniform, contributing to 7%–11% less bird turnover than in forests. In addition, bird responses to agriculture and climate were linked: agricultural communities across the precipitation gradient shared more species with dry than wet forest communities. These findings suggest that habitat conversion and anticipated climate drying will act together to exacerbate biotic homogenization.     

气候变化背景下野生动物脆弱性评估方法研究进展

脆弱性评估是研究气候变化影响野生动物的重要内容,识别野生动物脆弱性,是适应和减缓气候变化影响的关键和基础。开展气候变化背景下野生动物的脆弱性评估工作,目的是为了确定易受气候变化影响的物种和明确导致物种脆弱性的因素,其评估结果有助于人类认识气候变化对野生动物的影响,为野生动物适应气候变化保护对策的制定提供科学依据。对野生动物而言(物种),脆弱性是物种受气候变化影响的程度,包括暴露度、敏感性和适应能力三大要素。其中,暴露度是由气候变化引起的外在因素,如温度、降雨量、极值天气等;敏感性是受物种自身因素影响,如种间关系、耐受性等;适应能力是物种通过自身调整来减小气候变化带来的影响,如迁移或扩散到适宜生境的能力、塑性反应和进化反应等。对近期有关气候变化背景下野生动物脆弱性评估方法予以综述,比较每种评估方法所选取指标的差异,总结在脆弱性评估中遇到的不确定性指标的处理方法,以及脆弱性评估结果在野生动物适应气候变化对策中的应用。通过总结野生动物脆弱性评估方法,以期为气候变化背景下评估我国野生动物资源的脆弱性提供参考方法。     

Reconstruction of paleoclimates by isotopic analysis: What can the fossil isotopic record tell us about the plant life of past environments?

The last two decades of scientific research have seen a pronounced increase in studies of abrupt climatic change. Understanding past shifts in climate becomes a priority as we examine reasons for climatic change and the interrelationship between the biosphere and the atmosphere-ocean-cryosphere. The realisation that modern climate appears to be changing at a rapid rate has challenged scientists to look at past records of abrupt climate change. How rapidly can vegetation respond to climate shifts? What magnitude of vegetation change has been seen in the past? How widespread were these changes and how do they compare with shifts in the polar ice cores and the ocean? A selection of vegetation records, for which the isotopic signatures reflect environmental changes, are examined here. This paper focuses on the type of paleoclimatic interpretation that can be made: qualitative information with or without temporal constraint or even, in the best instances, the possibility of reaching a quantitative reconstruction.     

Global patterns in the vulnerability of ecosystems to vegetation shifts due to climate change

Aim Climate change threatens to shift vegetation, disrupting ecosystems and damaging human well‐being. Field observations in boreal, temperate and tropical ecosystems have detected biome changes in the 20th century, yet a lack of spatial data on vulnerability hinders organizations that manage natural resources from identifying priority areas for adaptation measures. We explore potential methods to identify areas vulnerable to vegetation shifts and potential refugia. Location Global vegetation biomes. Methods We examined nine combinations of three sets of potential indicators of the vulnerability of ecosystems to biome change: (1) observed changes of 20th‐century climate, (2) projected 21st‐century vegetation changes using the MC1 dynamic global vegetation model under three Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emissions scenarios, and (3) overlap of results from (1) and (2). Estimating probability density functions for climate observations and confidence levels for vegetation projections, we classified areas into vulnerability classes based on IPCC treatment of uncertainty. Results One‐tenth to one‐half of global land may be highly (confidence 0.80–0.95) to very highly (confidence ≥ 0.95) vulnerable. Temperate mixed forest, boreal conifer and tundra and alpine biomes show the highest vulnerability, often due to potential changes in wildfire. Tropical evergreen broadleaf forest and desert biomes show the lowest vulnerability. Main conclusions Spatial analyses of observed climate and projected vegetation indicate widespread vulnerability of ecosystems to biome change. A mismatch between vulnerability patterns and the geographic priorities of natural resource organizations suggests the need to adapt management plans. Approximately a billion people live in the areas classified as vulnerable.     

How will climate novelty influence ecological forecasts? Using the Quaternary to assess future reliability

Future climates are projected to be highly novel relative to recent climates. Climate novelty challenges models that correlate ecological patterns to climate variables and then use these relationships to forecast ecological responses to future climate change. Here, we quantify the magnitude and ecological significance of future climate novelty by comparing it to novel climates over the past 21,000 years in North America. We then use relationships between model performance and climate novelty derived from the fossil pollen record from eastern North America to estimate the expected decrease in predictive skill of ecological forecasting models as future climate novelty increases. We show that, in the high emissions scenario (RCP 8.5) and by late 21st century, future climate novelty is similar to or higher than peak levels of climate novelty over the last 21,000 years. The accuracy of ecological forecasting models is projected to decline steadily over the coming decades in response to increasing climate novelty, although models that incorporate co‐occurrences among species may retain somewhat higher predictive skill. In addition to quantifying future climate novelty in the context of late Quaternary climate change, this work underscores the challenges of making reliable forecasts to an increasingly novel future, while highlighting the need to assess potential avenues for improvement, such as increased reliance on geological analogs for future novel climates and improving existing models by pooling data through time and incorporating assemblage‐level information.     

Different axes of environmental variation explain the presence vs. extent of cooperative nest founding associations in Polistes paper wasps

Ecological constraints on independent breeding are recognised as major drivers of cooperative breeding across diverse lineages. How the prevalence and degree of cooperative breeding relates to ecological variation remains unresolved. Using a large data set of cooperative nesting in Polistes wasps we demonstrate that different aspects of cooperative breeding are likely to be driven by different aspects of climate. Whether or not a species forms cooperative groups is associated with greater short‐term temperature fluctuations. In contrast, the number of cooperative foundresses increases in more benign environments with warmer, wetter conditions. The same data set reveals that intraspecific responses to climate variation do not mirror genus‐wide trends and instead are highly heterogeneous among species. Collectively these data suggest that the ecological drivers that lead to the origin or loss of cooperation are different from those that influence the extent of its expression within populations.     

Desert grassland responses to climate and soil moisture suggest divergent vulnerabilities across the southwestern United States

Climate change predictions include warming and drying trends, which are expected to be particularly pronounced in the southwestern United States. In this region, grassland dynamics are tightly linked to available moisture, yet it has proven difficult to resolve what aspects of climate drive vegetation change. In part, this is because it is unclear how heterogeneity in soils affects plant responses to climate. Here, we combine climate and soil properties with a mechanistic soil water model to explain temporal fluctuations in perennial grass cover, quantify where and the degree to which incorporating soil water dynamics enhances our ability to understand temporal patterns, and explore the potential consequences of climate change by assessing future trajectories of important climate and soil water variables. Our analyses focused on long‐term (20–56 years) perennial grass dynamics across the Colorado Plateau, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Desert regions. Our results suggest that climate variability has negative effects on grass cover, and that precipitation subsidies that extend growing seasons are beneficial. Soil water metrics, including the number of dry days and availability of water from deeper (>30 cm) soil layers, explained additional grass cover variability. While individual climate variables were ranked as more important in explaining grass cover, collectively soil water accounted for 40–60% of the total explained variance. Soil water conditions were more useful for understanding the responses of C₃ than C₄ grass species. Projections of water balance variables under climate change indicate that conditions that currently support perennial grasses will be less common in the future, and these altered conditions will be more pronounced in the Chihuahuan Desert and Colorado Plateau. We conclude that incorporating multiple aspects of climate and accounting for soil variability can improve our ability to understand patterns, identify areas of vulnerability, and predict the future of desert grasslands.     

Vulnerability of stream community composition and function to projected thermal warming and hydrologic change across ecoregions in the western United States

Shifts in biodiversity and ecological processes in stream ecosystems in response to rapid climate change will depend on how numerically and functionally dominant aquatic insect species respond to changes in stream temperature and hydrology. Across 253 minimally perturbed streams in eight ecoregions in the western USA, we modeled the distribution of 88 individual insect taxa in relation to existing combinations of maximum summer temperature, mean annual streamflow, and their interaction. We used a heat map approach along with downscaled general circulation model (GCM) projections of warming and streamflow change to estimate site‐specific extirpation likelihood for each taxon, allowing estimation of whole‐community change in streams across these ecoregions. Conservative climate change projections indicate a 30–40% loss of taxa in warmer, drier ecoregions and 10–20% loss in cooler, wetter ecoregions where taxa are relatively buffered from projected warming and hydrologic change. Differential vulnerability of taxa with key functional foraging roles in processing basal resources suggests that climate change has the potential to modify stream trophic structure and function (e.g., alter rates of detrital decomposition and algal consumption), particularly in warmer and drier ecoregions. We show that streamflow change is equally as important as warming in projected risk to stream community composition and that the relative threat posed by these two fundamental drivers varies across ecoregions according to projected gradients of temperature and hydrologic change. Results also suggest that direct human modification of streams through actions such as water abstraction is likely to further exacerbate loss of taxa and ecosystem alteration, especially in drying climates. Management actions to mitigate climate change impacts on stream ecosystems or to proactively adapt to them will require regional calibration, due to geographic variation in insect sensitivity and in exposure to projected thermal warming and hydrologic change.     

The devil is in the detail: Nonadditive and context‐dependent plant population responses to increasing temperature and precipitation

In climate change ecology, simplistic research approaches may yield unrealistically simplistic answers to often more complicated problems. In particular, the complexity of vegetation responses to global climate change begs a better understanding of the impacts of concomitant changes in several climatic drivers, how these impacts vary across different climatic contexts, and of the demographic processes underlying population changes. Using a replicated, factorial, whole‐community transplant experiment, we investigated regional variation in demographic responses of plant populations to increased temperature and/or precipitation. Across four perennial forb species and 12 sites, we found strong responses to both temperature and precipitation change. Changes in population growth rates were mainly due to changes in survival and clonality. In three of the four study species, the combined increase in temperature and precipitation reflected nonadditive, antagonistic interactions of the single climatic changes for population growth rate and survival, while the interactions were additive and synergistic for clonality. This disparity affects the persistence of genotypes, but also suggests that the mechanisms behind the responses of the vital rates differ. In addition, survival effects varied systematically with climatic context, with wetter and warmer + wetter transplants showing less positive or more negative responses at warmer sites. The detailed demographic approach yields important mechanistic insights into how concomitant changes in temperature and precipitation affect plants, which makes our results generalizable beyond the four study species. Our comprehensive study design illustrates the power of replicated field experiments in disentangling the complex relationships and patterns that govern climate change impacts across real‐world species and landscapes.     

中国北方草原植被对气象因子的时滞响应

利用1982~1997年的气温、降水和1983~1997年生长季的NOAA/AVHRR的归一化植被指数(Normalized differential vegetation index, NDVI)遥感数据,分析了中国北方温带草原植被生长对气象因子的时滞响应。根据4个时间尺度(1~4个月)和4个时滞期(前0~3个月)将降水数据进行16种组合方式,计算了植被的NDVI与同期及前期(前1~6个月)降水之间的相关系数。同时,计算了植被的NDVI与同期和前一个月气温之间的相关系数。结果表明:1)中国北方温带草原植被的NDVI与同期降水和气温的显著相关。2)植被的NDVI对前一个月降水的时滞响应最强烈,植被的NDVI与当月降水和前两个月降水的累积量相关性最强。3)在生长季的起始阶段,去冬、今春的降水总量对草甸草原植被的生长有重要的作用。在生长季的中期和后期,当月和前一、二个月的降水对典型草原和荒漠草原的植被有显著影响。4)在草甸草原、典型草原区,生长季早期的气温均对植被生长的影响较为显著。在荒漠草原区,气温不仅在生长季初期与植被的NDVI呈现正相关,而且在生长季的中后期,气温与植被的NDVI呈现负相关性。     

Untangling interactions: do temperature and habitat fragmentation gradients simultaneously impact biotic relationships?

Gaining insight into the impact of anthropogenic change on ecosystems requires investigation into interdependencies between multiple drivers of ecological change and multiple biotic responses. Global environmental change drivers can act simultaneously to impact the abundance and diversity of biota, but few studies have also measured the impact across trophic levels. We firstly investigated whether climate (using temperature differences across a latitudinal gradient as a surrogate) interacts with habitat fragmentation (measured according to fragment area and distance to habitat edges) to impact a New Zealand tri-trophic food chain (plant, herbivore and natural enemy). Secondly, we examined how these interactions might differentially impact both the density and biotic processes of species at each of the three trophic levels. We found evidence to suggest that these drivers act non-additively across trophic levels. The nature of these interactions however varied: location synergistically interacted with fragmentation measures to exacerbate the detrimental effects on consumer density; and antagonistically interacted to ameliorate the impact on plant density and on the interactions between trophic levels (herbivory and parasitoid attack rate). Our findings indicate that the ecological consequences of multiple global change drivers are strongly interactive and vary according to the trophic level studied and whether density or ecological processes are investigated.     

Convergent ecosystem responses to 23‐year ambient and manipulated warming link advancing snowmelt and shrub encroachment to transient and long‐term climate–soil carbon feedback

Ecosystem responses to climate change can exert positive or negative feedbacks on climate, mediated in part by slow‐moving factors such as shifts in vegetation community composition. Long‐term experimental manipulations can be used to examine such ecosystem responses, but they also present another opportunity: inferring the extent to which contemporary climate change is responsible for slow changes in ecosystems under ambient conditions. Here, using 23 years of data, we document a shift from nonwoody to woody vegetation and a loss of soil carbon in ambient plots and show that these changes track previously shown similar but faster changes under experimental warming. This allows us to infer that climate change is the cause of the observed shifts in ambient vegetation and soil carbon and that the vegetation responses mediate the observed changes in soil carbon. Our findings demonstrate the realism of an experimental manipulation, allow attribution of a climate cause to observed ambient ecosystem changes, and demonstrate how a combination of long‐term study of ambient and experimental responses to warming can identify mechanistic drivers needed for realistic predictions of the conditions under which ecosystems are likely to become carbon sources or sinks over varying timescales.     

Simulating the onset of spring vegetation growth across the Northern Hemisphere

Changes in the spring onset of vegetation growth in response to climate change can profoundly impact climate–biosphere interactions. Thus, robust simulation of spring onset is essential to accurately predict ecosystem responses and feedback to ongoing climate change. To date, the ability of vegetation phenology models to reproduce spatiotemporal patterns of spring onset at larger scales has not been thoroughly investigated. In this study, we took advantage of phenology observations via remote sensing to calibrate and evaluated six models, including both one‐phase (considering only forcing temperatures) and two‐phase (involving forcing, chilling, and photoperiod) models across the Northern Hemisphere between 1982 and 2012. Overall, we found that the model that integrated the photoperiod effect performed best at capturing spatiotemporal patterns of spring phenology in boreal and temperate forests. By contrast, all of the models performed poorly in simulating the onset of growth in grasslands. These results suggest that the photoperiod plays a role in controlling the onset of growth in most Northern Hemisphere forests, whereas other environmental factors (e.g., precipitation) should be considered when simulating the onset of growth in grasslands. We also found that the one‐phase model performed as well as the two‐phase models in boreal forests, which implies that the chilling requirement is probably fulfilled across most of the boreal zone. Conversely, two‐phase models performed better in temperate forests than the one‐phase model, suggesting that photoperiod and chilling play important roles in these temperate forests. Our results highlight the significance of including chilling and photoperiod effects in models of the spring onset of forest growth at large scales, and indicate that the consideration of additional drivers may be required for grasslands.