The projected effect on insects, vertebrates, and plants of limiting global warming to 1.5°C rather than 2°C
One and a half degrees on biodiversity
Insects are the most diverse group of animals on Earth and are ubiquitous in terrestrial food webs. We have little information about their fate in a changing climate; data are scant for insects compared with other groups of organisms. Warren et al. performed a global-scale analysis of the effects of climate change on insect distribution (see the Perspective by Midgley). For vertebrates and plants, the number of species losing more than half their geographic range by 2100 is halved when warming is limited to 1.5°C, compared with projected losses at 2°C. But for insects, the number is reduced by two-thirds.
Abstract
In the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the United Nations is pursuing efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C, whereas earlier aspirations focused on a 2°C limit. With current pledges, corresponding to ~3.2°C warming, climatically determined geographic range losses of >50% are projected in ~49% of insects, 44% of plants, and 26% of vertebrates. At 2°C, this falls to 18% of insects, 16% of plants, and 8% of vertebrates and at 1.5°C, to 6% of insects, 8% of plants, and 4% of vertebrates. When warming is limited to 1.5°C as compared with 2°C, numbers of species projected to lose >50% of their range are reduced by ~66% in insects and by ~50% in plants and vertebrates.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Already a Subscriber?Sign In
Supplementary Material
Summary
Materials and Methods
Supplementary Text
Figs. S1 to S8
Tables S1 to S6
Resources
File (aar3646_warren_sm.pdf)
References and Notes
1
T. L. Root, J. T. Price, K. R. Hall, S. H. Schneider, C. Rosenzweig, J. A. Pounds, Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants. Nature 421, 57–60 (2003).
2
A. Fischlin et al., in Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, M. L. Parry, O. F. Canziani, J. P. Palutikof, P. J. van der Linden, C. E. Hanson, Eds. (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2007), pp. 211–272.
3
E. Post, U. S. Bhatt, C. M. Bitz, J. F. Brodie, T. L. Fulton, M. Hebblewhite, J. Kerby, S. J. Kutz, I. Stirling, D. A. Walker, Ecological consequences of sea-ice decline. Science 341, 519–524 (2013).
4
R. Warren, J. VanDerWal, J. Price, J. A. Welbergen, I. Atkinson, J. Ramirez-Villegas, T. J. Osborn, A. Jarvis, L. P. Shoo, S. E. Williams, J. Lowe, Quantifying the benefit of early climate change mitigation in avoiding biodiversity loss. Nat. Clim. Chang. 3, 678–682 (2013).
5
M. C. Fitzpatrick, N. J. Sanders, S. Ferrier, J. T. Longino, M. D. Weiser, R. Dunn, Forecasting the future of biodiversity: A test of single- and multi-species models for ants in North America. Ecography 34, 836–847 (2011).
6
T. C. Giannini, A. L. Acosta, C. A. Garófalo, A. M. Saraiva, I. Alves-dos-Santos, V. L. Imperatriz-Fonseca, Pollination services at risk: Bee habitats will decrease owing to climate change in Brazil. Ecol. Modell. 244, 127–131 (2012).
7
V. G. Ferro, P. Lemes, A. S. Melo, R. Loyola, The reduced effectiveness of protected areas under climate change threatens Atlantic forest tiger moths. PLOS ONE 9, e107792 (2014).
8
T.-S. Kwon, C. M. Lee, T. W. Kim, S.-S. Kim, J. H. Sung, Prediction of abundance of forest spiders according to climate warming in South Korea. J. Asia-Pacific Biodiversity 7, e133–e155 (2014).
9
L. J. Beaumont, L. Hughes, Potential changes in the distributions of latitudinally restricted Australian butterfly species in response to climate change. Glob. Change Biol. 8, 954–971 (2002).
10
W. B. Foden, S. H. M. Butchart, S. N. Stuart, J.-C. Vié, H. R. Akçakaya, A. Angulo, L. M. DeVantier, A. Gutsche, E. Turak, L. Cao, S. D. Donner, V. Katariya, R. Bernard, R. A. Holland, A. F. Hughes, S. E. O’Hanlon, S. T. Garnett, Ç. H. Sekercioğlu, G. M. Mace, Identifying the world’s most climate change vulnerable species: A systematic trait-based assessment of all birds, amphibians and corals. PLOS ONE 8, e65427 (2013).
11
Supplementary text is available in the supplementary materials.
12
W. W. Weisser, E. Siemann, in Insects and Ecosystem Function, W. W. Weisser, E. Siemann, Eds. (Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2008), pp. 3–24.
13
J. Rogelj, M. den Elzen, N. Höhne, T. Fransen, H. Fekete, H. Winkler, R. Schaeffer, F. Sha, K. Riahi, M. Meinshausen, Paris Agreement climate proposals need a boost to keep warming well below 2 °C. Nature 534, 631–639 (2016).
14
C. D. Thomas, A. Cameron, R. E. Green, M. Bakkenes, L. J. Beaumont, Y. C. Collingham, B. F. N. Erasmus, M. F. De Siqueira, A. Grainger, L. Hannah, L. Hughes, B. Huntley, A. S. Van Jaarsveld, G. F. Midgley, L. Miles, M. A. Ortega-Huerta, A. T. Peterson, O. L. Phillips, S. E. Williams, Extinction risk from climate change. Nature 427, 145–148 (2004).
15
M. C. Urban, Climate change. Accelerating extinction risk from climate change. Science 348, 571–573 (2015).
16
B. Martay, M. J. Brewer, D. A. Elston, J. R. Bell, R. Harrington, T. M. Brereton, K. E. Barlow, M. S. Botham, J. W. Pearce-Higgins, Impacts of climate change on national biodiversity population trends. Ecography 40, 1139–1151 (2017).
17
L. Clarke et al., in Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, O. Edenhofer et al., Eds. (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK, 2014).
18
P. Smith, S. J. Davis, F. Creutzig, S. Fuss, J. Minx, B. Gabrielle, E. Kato, R. B. Jackson, A. Cowie, E. Kriegler, D. P. van Vuuren, J. Rogelj, P. Ciais, J. Milne, J. G. Canadell, D. McCollum, G. Peters, R. Andrew, V. Krey, G. Shrestha, P. Friedlingstein, T. Gasser, A. Grübler, W. K. Heidug, M. Jonas, C. D. Jones, F. Kraxner, E. Littleton, J. Lowe, J. R. Moreira, N. Nakicenovic, M. Obersteiner, A. Patwardhan, M. Rogner, E. Rubin, A. Sharifi, A. Torvanger, Y. Yamagata, J. Edmonds, C. Yongsung, Biophysical and economic limits to negative CO2 emissions. Nat. Clim. Chang. 6, 42–50 (2015).
19
A. Wiltshire, T. Davies-Barnard, “Planetary limits to BECCS negative emissions” (AVOID2 WPD.2a Report 1, 2015); available at www.avoid.uk.net/2015/07/planetary-limits-to-beccs-negative-emissions-d2a/.
20
A. Popp, S. K. Rose, K. Calvin, D. P. Van Vuuren, J. P. Dietrich, M. Wise, E. Stehfest, F. Humpenöder, P. Kyle, J. Van Vliet, N. Bauer, H. Lotze-Campen, D. Klein, E. Kriegler, Land-use transition for bioenergy and climate stabilization: Model comparison of drivers, impacts and interactions with other land use based mitigation options. Clim. Change 123, 495–509 (2014).
21
M. Tavoni, R. Socolow, Modeling meets science and technology: An introduction to a special issue on negative emissions. Clim. Change 118, 1–14 (2013).
22
P. Smith, H. Haberl, A. Popp, K. H. Erb, C. Lauk, R. Harper, F. N. Tubiello, A. de Siqueira Pinto, M. Jafari, S. Sohi, O. Masera, H. Böttcher, G. Berndes, M. Bustamante, H. Ahammad, H. Clark, H. Dong, E. A. Elsiddig, C. Mbow, N. H. Ravindranath, C. W. Rice, C. Robledo Abad, A. Romanovskaya, F. Sperling, M. Herrero, J. I. House, S. Rose, How much land-based greenhouse gas mitigation can be achieved without compromising food security and environmental goals? Glob. Change Biol. 19, 2285–2302 (2013).
23
P. Smith, J. Price, A. Molotoks, R. Warren, Y. Malhi, Impacts on terrestrial biodiversity of moving from a 2°C to a 1.5°C target. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A 376, 20160456 (2018).
24
C. A. Hallmann, M. Sorg, E. Jongejans, H. Siepel, N. Hofland, H. Schwan, W. Stenmans, A. Müller, H. Sumser, T. Hörren, D. Goulson, H. de Kroon, More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas. PLOS ONE 12, e0185809 (2017).
25
D. P. Van Vuuren, A. Hof, D. Gernaat, M.-S. de Boer, “Limiting global temperature to 1.5°C: implications for carbon budgets, emissions and energy pathways” (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 2017).
26
R. J. Warren 2nd, M. A. Bradford, Mutualism fails when climate response differs between interacting species. Glob. Change Biol. 20, 466–474 (2014).
27
C. Parmesan, A. Williams-Anderson, M. Moskwik, A. S. Mikheyev, M. C. Singer, Endangered Quino checkerspot butterfly and climate change: Short-term success but long-term vulnerability? J. Insect Conserv. 19, 185–204 (2015).
28
O. McDermott Long, R. Warren, J. Price, T. M. Brereton, M. S. Botham, A. M. A. Franco, Sensitivity of UK butterflies to local climatic extremes: Which life stages are most at risk? J. Anim. Ecol. 86, 108–116 (2017).
29
T. H. Oliver, H. H. Marshall, M. D. Morecroft, T. Brereton, C. Prudhomme, C. Huntingford, Interacting effects of climate change and habitat fragmentation on drought-sensitive butterflies. Nat. Clim. Chang. 5, 941–945 (2015).
30
K. J. Gaston, R. A. Fuller, Commonness, population depletion and conservation biology. Trends Ecol. Evol. 23, 14–19 (2008).
31
R. Dirzo, H. S. Young, M. Galetti, G. Ceballos, N. J. B. Isaac, B. Collen, Defaunation in the Anthropocene. Science 345, 401–406 (2014).
32
J. C. Biesmeijer, S. P. Roberts, M. Reemer, R. Ohlemüller, M. Edwards, T. Peeters, A. P. Schaffers, S. G. Potts, R. Kleukers, C. D. Thomas, J. Settele, W. E. Kunin, Parallel declines in pollinators and insect-pollinated plants in Britain and the Netherlands. Science 313, 351–354 (2006).
33
K. L. Stuble, C. M. Patterson, M. A. Rodriguez-Cabal, R. R. Ribbons, R. R. Dunn, N. J. Sanders, Ant-mediated seed dispersal in a warmed world. PeerJ 2, e286 (2014).
34
C. Yesson, P. W. Brewer, T. Sutton, N. Caithness, J. S. Pahwa, M. Burgess, W. A. Gray, R. J. White, A. C. Jones, F. A. Bisby, A. Culham, How global is the global biodiversity information facility? PLOS ONE 2, e1124 (2007).
35
T. J. Osborn, C. J. Wallace, I. C. Harris, T. M. Melvin, Pattern scaling using ClimGen: Monthly-resolution future climate scenarios including changes in the variability of precipitation. Clim. Change 134, 353–369 (2016).
36
S. J. Phillips, R. P. Anderson, R. E. Schapire, Maximum entropy modeling of species geographic distributions. Ecol. Modell. 190, 231–259 (2006).
37
R. H. Moss, J. A. Edmonds, K. A. Hibbard, M. R. Manning, S. K. Rose, D. P. van Vuuren, T. R. Carter, S. Emori, M. Kainuma, T. Kram, G. A. Meehl, J. F. B. Mitchell, N. Nakicenovic, K. Riahi, S. J. Smith, R. J. Stouffer, A. M. Thomson, J. P. Weyant, T. J. Wilbanks, The next generation of scenarios for climate change research and assessment. Nature 463, 747–756 (2010).
38
D. Bernie, J. A. Lowe, “Future temperature responses based on IPCC and other existing emissions scenarios” (AVOID2 WPA. 1 Report 1, 2014); available at http://www.avoid.uk.net/.
39
IPCC, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK, 2013).
40
R. J. Hijmans, S. E. Cameron, J. L. Parra, P. G. Jones, A. Jarvis, Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. Int. J. Climatol. 25, 1965–1978 (2005).
41
A. J. Suggitt, P. J. Platts, I. M. Barata, J. J. Bennie, M. D. Burgess, N. Bystriakova, S. Duffield, S. R. Ewing, P. K. Gillingham, A. B. Harper, A. J. Hartley, D. L. Hemming, I. M. D. Maclean, K. Maltby, H. H. Marshall, M. D. Morecroft, J. W. Pearce-Higgins, P. Pearce-Kelly, A. B. Phillimore, J. T. Price, A. Pyke, J. E. Stewart, R. Warren, J. K. Hill, Conducting robust ecological analyses with climate data. Oikos 126, 1533–1541 (2017).
42
C. J. Wallace, T. J. Osborn, J. A. Lowe, D. Bernie, “Assessment of regional climate change and effectiveness of pattern scaling approaches” (Deliverable 2.4, High End Climate Impacts and Extremes (HELIX), Project 603864, European Commission 7th Framework Programme, 2017).
43
R. Warren et al., “Report on different degrees of adaptation measures applied in the impact models” (Deliverable 4.4, High End Climate Impacts and Extremes (HELIX), Project 603864, European Commission 7th Framework Programme, 2017).
44
V. Devictor, C. van Swaay, T. Brereton, L′. Brotons, D. Chamberlain, J. Heliölä, S. Herrando, R. Julliard, M. Kuussaari, Å. Lindström, J′. Reif, D. B. Roy, O. Schweiger, J. Settele, C′. Stefanescu, A. Van Strien, C. Van Turnhout, Z. Vermouzek, M. WallisDeVries, I. Wynhoff, F. Jiguet, Differences in the climatic debts of birds and butterflies at a continental scale. Nat. Clim. Chang. 2, 121–124 (2012).
45
C. Parmesan, N. Ryrholm, C. Stefanescu, J. K. Hill, C. D. Thomas, H. Descimon, B. Huntley, L. Kaila, J. Kullberg, T. Tammaru, W. J. Tennent, J. A. Thomas, M. Warren, Poleward shifts in geographical ranges of butterfly species associated with regional warming. Nature 399, 579–583 (1999).
46
M. S. Warren, J. K. Hill, J. A. Thomas, J. Asher, R. Fox, B. Huntley, D. B. Roy, M. G. Telfer, S. Jeffcoate, P. Harding, G. Jeffcoate, S. G. Willis, J. N. Greatorex-Davies, D. Moss, C. D. Thomas, Rapid responses of British butterflies to opposing forces of climate and habitat change. Nature 414, 65–69 (2001).
47
R. Hickling, D. B. Roy, J. K. Hill, C. D. Thomas, A northward shift of range margins in British Odonata. Glob. Change Biol. 11, 502–506 (2005).
48
I.-C. Chen, J. K. Hill, R. Ohlemüller, D. B. Roy, C. D. Thomas, Rapid range shifts of species associated with high levels of climate warming. Science 333, 1024–1026 (2011).
49
T. Jezkova, J. J. Wiens, Rates of change in climatic niches in plant and animal populations are much slower than projected climate change. Proc. Biol. Sci. 283, 20162104 (2016).
50
C. F. G. Thomas, P. Brain, P. C. Jepson, Aerial activity of linyphiid spiders: Modelling dispersal distances from meteorology and behaviour. J. Appl. Ecol. 40, 912–927 (2003).
51
D. Bonte, J. M. J. Travis, N. De Clercq, I. Zwertvaegher, L. Lens, Thermal conditions during juvenile development affect adult dispersal in a spider. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105, 17000–17005 (2008).
52
M. A. Krawchuk, M. A. Moritz, M.-A. Parisien, J. Van Dorn, K. Hayhoe, Global pyrogeography: The current and future distribution of wildfire. PLOS ONE 4, e5102 (2009).
53
M. A. Moritz, M.-A. Parisien, E. Batllori, M. A. Krawchuk, J. Van Dorn, D. J. Ganz, K. Hayhoe, Climate change and disruptions to global fire activity. Ecosphere 3, art49 (2012).
54
IPCC, Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK, 2014).
55
J. A. Lowe, N. W. Arnell, R. Warren, A. J. Gambhir, D. Bernie, E. Thompson, Avoiding dangerous climate: Results from the AVOID2 programme. Weather 72, 340–345 (2017).
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Science
Volume 360 | Issue 6390
18 May 2018
18 May 2018
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
This is an article distributed under the terms of the Science Journals Default License.
Submission history
Received: 1 November 2017
Accepted: 12 April 2018
Published in print: 18 May 2018
Acknowledgments
The model computing and data storage are part of a near-decade-long partnership with the eResearch Centre at James Cook University. We acknowledge I. Atkinson and his staff for their long collaboration on the Wallace Initiative. We thank A. Franco for comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript. Funding: This work was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) grant no. NE/P014992/1. Author contributions: All authors contributed to the paper and to all aspects of the work, but the main roles of the team members were as follows: R.W. wrote the paper and managed the NERC project; J.P., R.W., and J.V. designed the original experiments; E.G., J.P., and J.V. prepared the data, ran the models, and analyzed the output data; N.F. helped analyze the data and prepare the figures. The team are members of the Wallace Initiative collaboration led by J.P. Competing interests: The authors have no competing interests. Data and materials availability: The data are available from wallaceinitiative.org, or by request to [email protected]
Authors
Funding Information
Natural Environment Research Council: NE/P014992/1
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Article Usage
Altmetrics
Citations
Export citation
Select the format you want to export the citation of this publication.
Cited by
- Single-atom catalysts for biomass-derived drop-in chemicals, Advanced Catalysis for Drop-in Chemicals, (63-100), (2022).https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-823827-1.00009-2
- Exposure to climate change drives stability or collapse of desert mammal and bird communities, Science, 371, 6529, (633-636), (2021)./doi/10.1126/science.abd4605
- Agricultural intensification and climate change are rapidly decreasing insect biodiversity, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118, 2, (e2002548117), (2021).https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2002548117
- Nitrapyrin coupled with organic amendment mitigates N2O emissions by inhibiting different ammonia oxidizers in alkaline and acidic soils, Applied Soil Ecology, 166, (104062), (2021).https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsoil.2021.104062
- Threats of global warming to the world’s freshwater fishes, Nature Communications, 12, 1, (2021).https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21655-w
- The datafication of nature: data formations and new scales in natural history, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 27, S1, (62-75), (2021).https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.13480
- Maximizing the effectiveness of national commitments to protected area expansion for conserving biodiversity and ecosystem carbon under climate change, Global Change Biology, 27, 15, (3395-3414), (2021).https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15645
- Clinal variation in phenological traits and fitness responses to drought across the native range of California poppy, Climate Change Ecology, (100021), (2021).https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecochg.2021.100021
- Using Field Experiments to Inform Biodiversity Monitoring in Agricultural Landscapes, Exploring and Optimizing Agricultural Landscapes, (425-436), (2021).https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67448-9_20
- Climate Change Pathways and Potential Future Risks to Nutrition and Infection, Nutrition and Infectious Diseases, (429-458), (2021).https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56913-6
- See more
Loading...
View Options
Get Access
Log in to view the full text
AAAS login provides access to Science for AAAS members, and access to other journals in the Science family to users who have purchased individual subscriptions.
- Become a AAAS Member
- Activate your Account
- Purchase Access to Other Journals in the Science Family
- Account Help
Log in via OpenAthens.
Log in via Shibboleth.
More options
Register for free to read this article
As a service to the community, this article is available for free. Login or register for free to read this article.
Buy a single issue of Science for just $15 USD.
View options
PDF format
Download this article as a PDF file
Download PDF