Climate change impacts on the terrestrial biodiversity and carbon stocks of Oceania.

Abstract

We review the threats from anthropogenic climate change to the terrestrial biodiversity of Oceania, and quantify decline in carbon stocks. Oceania’s rich terrestrial biodiversity is facing unprecedented threats through the interaction of pervasive environmental threats (deforestation and degradation; introduced and invasive species; fragmentation) and the effects of anthropogenic climate change (sea level rise; altered rainfall patterns and increased fire frequency; temperature rises and increased storm severity, extreme weather events and abrupt system changes). All nine of Oceania’s terrestrial biomes harbour ecosystems and habitat types that are highly vulnerable under climate change, posing an immense conservation challenge. Current policies and management practices are inadequate and the need for new legislation and economic mechanisms is clear, despite powerful interests committed to limiting progress. Mitigation can be achieved by increasing the effectiveness of the protected area network, by maintaining and effectively managing existing carbon stocks and biodiversity, and by reforestation to sequester atmospheric carbon. A price on carbon emissions may encourage less carbon-intensive energy use while simultaneously encouraging reforestation on long-cleared land, and reducing degradation of native forests. However, realizing these changes will require societal change, and depend on input and collaboration from multiple stakeholders to devise and engage in shared, responsible management.

Climate Change in Oceania – A synthesis of biodiversity impacts and adaptations.

“…Such climate patterns are already affecting migration patterns of species of birds (Beaumont et al 2006). Terrestrial ecosystems are projected to significantly change as a result of these effects, with inevitable changes for dependent processes and organisms (Wardell-Johnson et al 2011). These are unlikely to be offset by increases in carbon dioxide which favour plant productivity because of other limiting factors such as water availability (Prowse and Brook 2011;WardellJohnson et al 2011).…”

“…Importantly, it may not be the chronic effect of increased drying but one acute period of drought which changes a community, potentially to an alternate state. For example, many ecosystems were severely affected by the recent dry period, the "Big Dry" (Prowse and Brook 2011) in Australia and the death of large swathes of jarrah forests Eucalyptus marginata may be due to drying (Wardell-Johnson et al 2011). The drying of vegetation communities may shift terrestrial ecosystems from a tree dominated landscape to a grassland community, increasing the likelihood of fires which may also be hotter in regions because of increased fuel loads (Lundquist et al 2011;Wardell-Johnson et al 2011).…”

“…2; Steffen et al 2009;Wardell-Johnson et al 2011): changes in rainfall, increases in temperature and CO 2 and sea level rise (Table 1). There is considerable uncertainty in the magnitude and rate of the change and consequent impacts, given little knowledge of the resilience of ecosystems and their species to these rapid changes.…”

“…Climate change is already acutely affecting Oceania. In this special issue, contributors review our current understanding for the impacts of anthropogenic climate change on biodiversity throughout Oceania, from the perspective of geographical regions, Australia (Prowse and Brook 2011), New Zealand (Lundquist et al 2011) and Pacific Islands (Duffy 2011) and also the main realms: terrestrial (Wardell-Johnson et al 2011), marine (Grantham et al 2011) and freshwater (Jenkins et al 2011). Within each of these regions and realms, authors also discuss possible adaptations to anthropogenic climate change that limit impacts on the conservation of biodiversity.…”

Helping nature help us: Transforming disaster risk reduction through ecosystem management

“…However it harbours a variety of important cultural systems and natural terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. The array of ecosystems in the region have extremely high levels of biodiversity and endemism owing to their insular nature (Wardell-Johnson et al, 2011;SPREP, 2012). Some species groups have endemism levels of up to 90% (SPREP, 2012).…”