Cargando…

Mesocosms Reveal Ecological Surprises from Climate Change

Understanding, predicting, and mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity poses one of the most crucial challenges this century. Currently, we know more about how future climates are likely to shift across the globe than about how species will respond to these changes. Two recent studi...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Fordham, Damien A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4682990/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26680131
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002323
_version_ 1782405956602167296
author Fordham, Damien A.
author_facet Fordham, Damien A.
author_sort Fordham, Damien A.
collection PubMed
description Understanding, predicting, and mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity poses one of the most crucial challenges this century. Currently, we know more about how future climates are likely to shift across the globe than about how species will respond to these changes. Two recent studies show how mesocosm experiments can hasten understanding of the ecological consequences of climate change on species’ extinction risk, community structure, and ecosystem functions. Using a large-scale terrestrial warming experiment, Bestion et al. provide the first direct evidence that future global warming can increase extinction risk for temperate ectotherms. Using aquatic mesocosms, Yvon-Durocher et al. show that human-induced climate change could, in some cases, actually enhance the diversity of local communities, increasing productivity. Blending these theoretical and empirical results with computational models will improve forecasts of biodiversity loss and altered ecosystem processes due to climate change.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4682990
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2015
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-46829902015-12-31 Mesocosms Reveal Ecological Surprises from Climate Change Fordham, Damien A. PLoS Biol Primer Understanding, predicting, and mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity poses one of the most crucial challenges this century. Currently, we know more about how future climates are likely to shift across the globe than about how species will respond to these changes. Two recent studies show how mesocosm experiments can hasten understanding of the ecological consequences of climate change on species’ extinction risk, community structure, and ecosystem functions. Using a large-scale terrestrial warming experiment, Bestion et al. provide the first direct evidence that future global warming can increase extinction risk for temperate ectotherms. Using aquatic mesocosms, Yvon-Durocher et al. show that human-induced climate change could, in some cases, actually enhance the diversity of local communities, increasing productivity. Blending these theoretical and empirical results with computational models will improve forecasts of biodiversity loss and altered ecosystem processes due to climate change. Public Library of Science 2015-12-17 /pmc/articles/PMC4682990/ /pubmed/26680131 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002323 Text en © 2015 Damien A. Fordham http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Primer
Fordham, Damien A.
Mesocosms Reveal Ecological Surprises from Climate Change
title Mesocosms Reveal Ecological Surprises from Climate Change
title_full Mesocosms Reveal Ecological Surprises from Climate Change
title_fullStr Mesocosms Reveal Ecological Surprises from Climate Change
title_full_unstemmed Mesocosms Reveal Ecological Surprises from Climate Change
title_short Mesocosms Reveal Ecological Surprises from Climate Change
title_sort mesocosms reveal ecological surprises from climate change
topic Primer
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4682990/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26680131
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002323
work_keys_str_mv AT fordhamdamiena mesocosmsrevealecologicalsurprisesfromclimatechange