Relationship between global warming and species richness of vascular plants

Abstract

We analyzed climatological and geographical variables in 90 countries from the Northern Hemisphere to determine the significant variability of plant species richness as it relates to broad-scale levels of global warming. This variability was quantified by the parameters of temperature and precipitation. Of the 27 temperature variables and 13 precipitation variables, 6 variables had negative influences on species richness while 5 variables had positive impacts. When we estimated the effect of higher temperatures, we found that a 1 or 2~ rise in global warming produced an increase in species richness of 1.6 or 3.2%, respectively.

Global warming and biodiversity model projections

“…Expected species loss per pixel (a 50 × 50km grid) proved to be highly variable across scenarios (27-42%, averaged over Europe) and across regions (2.5-86%, averaged over scenarios). Ihm et al (2007) analysed 40 climatological and two geographic variables for 90 countries in the Northern Hemisphere to investigate the predictors that explained the variances in species richness (Table 1). When multiple regression models were used to evaluate this variance, the model r 2 was 0.431.…”

“…Lower-latitude sites showed greater richness than did higher-latitude sites. This latitudinal gradient in species richness is a consequence of spatial variation in both the immigration and extinction of species (Pianka 1966, Gaston 2000, Ihm et al 2007. For very large land masses, the effects of speciation and regional or global extinction will predominate, and immigration and emigration will be less important.…”

“…The level of anthropogenic stress on biodiversity is far greater than that imposed by natural global climatic changes occurring in the re-species with increasing mean air or water temperatures. Substantial evidence indicates that a broadly positive monotonic relationship between species richness and energy availability is common at geographical scales across temperate to polar areas (Dobzhansky 1950, Pianka 1966, Turner et al 1988, Currie 1991, O'Brien 1998, Rutherford et al 1999, Gaston 2000, Lennon et al 2000, Francis and Currie 2003, Hawkins et al 2003, Root et al 2003, Hawkins and Pausas 2004, Evans et al 2005, De Boeck et al 2007, Ihm et al 2007, Peñuelas et al 2007, Whittaker et al 2007). The best correlates for terrestrial and marine animals are measures of energy, such as temperature, whereas the best correlates for plants tend to be measures of both water and energy, such as precipitation, temperature and net primary production (NPP) (Stevens 1989, Willig and Lyons 1998, Gaston 2000, Allen et al 2002, Field et al 2005, Mutke and Barthlott 2005, Barthlott et al 2007, Kreft and Jetz 2007.…”

“…The rule postulates that tropical species have smaller ranges on average, than temperate taxa because of the tolerance of temperate species to a broader range of environmen-cent evolutionary past, including temperature increases, shifts in climate zones, melting of snow and ice, sea level increases, droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events. Natural systems are vulnerable to such changes because of their limited adaptive capacity (Pimm and Gittleman 1992, Vitousek 1994, Pimm et al 1995, Warren et al 2001, Ihm et al 2007, Fonty et al 2009.…”

Dynamics of alpine treelines: positive feedbacks and global, regional and local controls

“…Within these zones, treeline positions are widely thought to be temperature sensitive and potentially responsive to a warming climate (Lenoir et al 2008, Harsch et al 2009, Kreyling et al 2010, Kullman 2010a. For this reason, the dynamics of the upper altitudinal or latitudinal treeline have been studied around the globe with the aim of detecting change, understanding responses to temperature variation, and evaluating the threat to alpine biota in response to treeline movement (Kong 1999, Walther 2003, Holtmeier and Broll 2005, Ihm et al 2007, Case and Duncan 2014, Hagedorn et al 2014, Smith-McKenna et al 2014. Harsch et al (2009) reported a global dataset of 166 sites for which treeline dynamics had been recorded since AD 1900: advance was recorded at 52% of sites with only 1% reporting treeline recession.…”