Past and future global transformation of terrestrial ecosystems under climate change
Future predictions from paleoecology
Terrestrial ecosystems will be transformed by current anthropogenic change, but the extent of this change remains a challenge to predict. Nolan et al. looked at documented vegetational and climatic changes at almost 600 sites worldwide since the last glacial maximum 21,000 years ago. From this, they determined vegetation responses to temperature changes of 4° to 7°C. They went on to estimate the extent of ecosystem changes under current similar (albeit more rapid) scenarios of warming. Without substantial mitigation efforts, terrestrial ecosystems are at risk of major transformation in composition and structure.
Science, this issue p. 920
Abstract
Impacts of global climate change on terrestrial ecosystems are imperfectly constrained by ecosystem models and direct observations. Pervasive ecosystem transformations occurred in response to warming and associated climatic changes during the last glacial-to-interglacial transition, which was comparable in magnitude to warming projected for the next century under high-emission scenarios. We reviewed 594 published paleoecological records to examine compositional and structural changes in terrestrial vegetation since the last glacial period and to project the magnitudes of ecosystem transformations under alternative future emission scenarios. Our results indicate that terrestrial ecosystems are highly sensitive to temperature change and suggest that, without major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, terrestrial ecosystems worldwide are at risk of major transformation, with accompanying disruption of ecosystem services and impacts on biodiversity.
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Supplementary Material
Summary
Materials and Methods
Supplementary Text
Figs. S1 to S8
Tables S1 to S4
Data S1
Resources
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Volume 361 | Issue 6405
31 August 2018
31 August 2018
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Submission history
Received: 27 April 2017
Accepted: 30 July 2018
Published in print: 31 August 2018
Acknowledgments
The paper benefitted from the thoughtful comments of S. T. Gray and three anonymous reviewers. Funding: This research was supported by the NSF (DEB-1241851, AGS-1243125, and EAR-1304083) and by the Department of the Interior’s Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center. Research in northeast Siberia was funded by the Russian Academy of Sciences, FEB (15-I-2-067), and the Russian Foundation for Fundamental Research (15-05-06420). Author contributions: S.T.J., C.N., and J.T.O. designed the project; all authors collected data; C.N. analyzed data with advice from J.T.O., S.T.J., S.B., and J.T.; and S.T.J., C.N., and J.T.O. wrote the paper with text contributions in the supplementary materials from B.M.C., M.B.B., M.E.E., J.L.B., B.H., Y.L., and S.J.I. and further contributions from all authors. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data are available in the main text or the supplementary materials.
Authors
Funding Information
National Science Foundation: DEB-1241851
National Science Foundation: AGS-1243125
National Science Foundation: EAR-1304083
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