pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Climate change, ecosystems and abrupt change: science priorities - PubMed

  • ️Wed Jan 01 2020

Review

. 2020 Mar 16;375(1794):20190105.

doi: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0105. Epub 2020 Jan 27.

Affiliations

Review

Climate change, ecosystems and abrupt change: science priorities

Monica G Turner et al. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2020.

Abstract

Ecologists have long studied patterns, directions and tempos of change, but there is a pressing need to extend current understanding to empirical observations of abrupt changes as climate warming accelerates. Abrupt changes in ecological systems (ACES)-changes that are fast in time or fast relative to their drivers-are ubiquitous and increasing in frequency. Powerful theoretical frameworks exist, yet applications in real-world landscapes to detect, explain and anticipate ACES have lagged. We highlight five insights emerging from empirical studies of ACES across diverse ecosystems: (i) ecological systems show ACES in some dimensions but not others; (ii) climate extremes may be more important than mean climate in generating ACES; (iii) interactions among multiple drivers often produce ACES; (iv) contingencies, such as ecological memory, frequency and sequence of disturbances, and spatial context are important; and (v) tipping points are often (but not always) associated with ACES. We suggest research priorities to advance understanding of ACES in the face of climate change. Progress in understanding ACES requires strong integration of scientific approaches (theory, observations, experiments and process-based models) and high-quality empirical data drawn from a diverse array of ecosystems. This article is part of the theme issue 'Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions'.

Keywords: disturbance; ecological memory; regime shift; resilience; thresholds.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

We declare we have no competing interests.

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Ratajczak Z, Carpenter SR, Ives AR, Kucharik CJ, Ramiadantsoa T, Stegner MA, Williams JW, Zhang J, Turner MG. 2018. Abrupt change in ecological systems: inference and diagnosis. Trends Ecol. Evol. 33, 513–526. (10.1016/j.tree.2018.04.013) - DOI - PubMed
    1. Hughes TP, et al. 2018. Spatial and temporal patterns of mass bleaching of corals in the Anthropocene. Science 359, 80–83. (10.1126/science.aan8048) - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wernberg T, et al. 2016. Climate-driven regime shift of a temperature marine ecosystem. Science 353, 169–172. (10.1126/science.aad8745) - DOI - PubMed
    1. Sharma S, et al. 2019. Widespread loss of lake ice around the Northern Hemisphere in a warming world. Nat. Clim. Change 9, 227–231. (10.1038/s41558-018-0393-5) - DOI
    1. Saros JE, et al. 2019. Arctic climate shifts drive rapid ecosystem responses across the West Greenland landscape. Environ. Res. Lett. 14, 074027 (10.1088/1748-9326/ab2928) - DOI

Publication types

MeSH terms