Biodiversity conservation in climate change driven transient communities

Abstract

Species responding differently to climate change form ‘transient communities’, communities with constantly changing species composition due to colonization and extinction events. Our goal is to disentangle the mechanisms of response to climate change for terrestrial species in these transient communities and explore the consequences for biodiversity conservation. We review spatial escape and local adaptation of species dealing with climate change from evolutionary and ecological perspectives. From these we derive species vulnerability and management options to mitigate effects of climate change. From the perspective of transient communities, conservation management should scale up static single species approaches and focus on community dynamics and species interdependency, while considering species vulnerability and their importance for the community. Spatially explicit and frequent monitoring is vital for assessing the change in communities and distribution of species. We review management options such as: increasing connectivity and landscape resilience, assisted colonization, and species protection priority in the context of transient communities.

Emerging Ecotone and Microbial Community of a Sulfidic Spring in the Reka River near Škocjanske Jame, Slovenia

“…Above this, the 50-300 m-thick Liburnian Formation (K-Pc) comprises bedded and platy limestones with thin coal beds occurring locally. Below the Sežana Formation (Figure 2 cross-section A-B), the massive and partly recrystallized limestones [19] of the Repen Formation (K 2 1,2 ) are less than 200 m thick, with their base about 450 m below the horizon associated with the Smrdljivec spring.…”

“…Currently, climatological and hydrological extremes seem to occur more frequently than during the recent past [1]. Under such conditions, biota must adapt to environmental changes in order to ensure survival and successful colonization [2]. Biota are affected by climate change [3], and clear indications of accelerated warming have been observed during the last 120 years [4].…”

“…Biota are affected by climate change [3], and clear indications of accelerated warming have been observed during the last 120 years [4]. Organisms need to adapt in order to survive environmental changes that affect their habitat, displaying various responses ranging from phenological displacements [5] to changes in species distribution and community composition [2], or even to extinctions [6]. It is also known that ecosystem type, biomass, productivity, or community composition react differently to environmental changes.…”

Climate Change Increases the Expansion Risk of Helicoverpa zea in China According to Potential Geographical Distribution Estimation

“…In addition, there are differences in phenology between invasive and native species [12]. Changes in precipitation and temperature patterns due to climate warming allow IAS to adapt more quickly to invaded environments and enhance their ability to disperse [13][14][15]. According to reports provided by the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), warming will reach or exceed 1.5 • C in the next few decades [16].…”

Possible impact of different scenarios of climate change on the formation of some ecosystem services in the Azov-Black Sea region

“…Biodiversity has been and remains as one of the most difficult service which is amenable to research and forecasting. At the same time, the climatic changes influence on significantly both biodiversity as a whole, its individual components, and the welfare (well-being) of the person, which he receives on the basis of biodiversity [5,6]. And if the influence of the climatic changes directly on the individual aspects of diversity is in the focus of the scientific research today [7][8][9], so the assessment of the influence of such changes on ecosystem services in the Ukraine has been studied weakly yet.…”