Geography of global change and species richness in the North

Abstract

Different components of global change (e.g., climate change, land use, pollution, and introduced species) continue to alter biodiversity worldwide. As northern regions are still relatively undisturbed and will likely face clear increases in temperature in the near-future, we examined the signs of biodiversity change due to anthropogenic stressors using a systematic review of previous studies. Our aim was to map where, in which way, and owing to which stressor biodiversity in northern regions has changed. We made a systematic literature search covering the years between 2000 and 2015 to obtain a comprehensive selection of recent research. As species richness was clearly the most commonly used indicator of biodiversity, we only concentrated on this aspect of biodiversity. We compared different biological groups, regions, and ecosystems. In the majority of the cases, anthropogenic stressors had decreased species richness, or had no effects on it, while increasing or multiple effects of stressors on species richness were less common. Freshwater ecosystems were most sensitive to anthropogenic stressors, as species richness often decreased owing to these stressors. The effects of land use on richness were covered relatively widely in the selected set of articles, but the effects of other components of global change on species richness require further attention. Despite the fact that pollution was not as commonly studied stressor as land use, it was the most harmful stressor type affecting species richness. Geographically, most studies were located in boreal Canada or Fennoscandia, while no studies were executed in vast circumpolar areas where the temperature rise has been greatest and the projected climate change is likely to be fast. Overall, we could find an alarmingly small set of studies that described the effects of actual anthropogenic stressors in real-life circumstances in northern high latitudes.

No biotic homogenisation across decades but consistent effects of landscape position and pH on macrophyte communities in boreal lakes

“…We also aimed to discover if these patterns differ between species-, phylogenyand trait-based beta diversity (i.e. In addition, freshwater ecosystems are globally considered biodiversity hotspots and provide valuable ecosystem goods and services to humans, but are intensively threatened by global change (Dudgeon et al 2006, Vörösmarty et al 2010, Vilmi et al 2016, Reid et al 2018). We used presence-absence data of aquatic macrophytes from five different decades from small boreal lakes and used generalised dissimilarity modelling to study separately the relationship between different biodiversity facets and environmental gradients among five different time periods.…”

Is catchment geodiversity a useful surrogate of aquatic plant species richness?

“…A growing need to conserve and manage biodiversity in the rapidly changing world (Dudgeon et al, 2006;Sala, Chapin, & Armesto, 2000;Vilmi et al, 2017) requires updated planning schemes and efforts. Inclusion of abiotic surrogates of biodiversity has a high potential to improve the efficiency of conservation planning (Parks & Mulligan, 2010;Tukiainen, Bailey, Field, Kangas, & Hjort, 2017a) offering a more holistic understanding of interactions between biotic and abiotic environments (Antonelli et al, 2018).…”

Using traits to explain interspecific variation in diatom occupancy and abundance across lakes and streams

“…Information on predictors of occupancy and abundance, building blocks of biodiversity, is urgently needed given that human impacts on the abiotic environment and biota are so strong that we are currently living in a new geological era called the Anthropocene (Lewis & Maslin, 2015;Waters et al, 2016). One of the most vulnerable ecosystems to human impacts are the freshwaters (Heino, Virkkala, & Toivonen, 2009;Vilmi, Alahuhta, et al, 2017;Vörösmarty et al, 2010), which is why occupancy-abundance relationships and the drivers behind them deserve special attention in fresh waters. However, freshwater ecosystems are challenging to study, as they can greatly differ in their geomorphological and hydrological characteristics.…”