Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe ... - MemoFin.fr

Climate impacts on environmental systemsFigure 3.12 Effects of climate change on nature and biodiversityClimate change• Temperature• Precipitation• Climate extremes• Sea-level rise• ...Direct impacts• Physiology• Phenology• DistributionIndirect impacts through site conditions• Moisture and nutrient availability• Water and soil quality• Salinisation• ErosionInteraction with other stress factors• Fragmentation• Eutrophication• Management (forestry, agriculture, fishery)• Industry (e.g. use cooling water)Impacts on ecosystems• Including relationships and food chainsSource: Based on Jelle van Minnen, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.For example, migration may be constrained by thespeed of dispersal mechanisms and by migrationbarriers, including human habitat fragmentation.If all these response mechanisms fail, the species islikely to gradually disappear from its current rangeand eventually become extinct.Measuring the impacts of a changing climateon biodiversity is a considerable challenge.Furthermore, attribution of observed changes inbiodiversity to climate change is difficult becauseof the importance of other drivers, such as habitatfragmentation, degradation and loss (Mantyka-Pringle et al., 2012), invasive alien species, humanmanagement and land-use change. Nevertheless,several comprehensive studies have identifiedclimate change as the main driver for changes inthe phenology and distribution of plant and animalspecies across the world (Root et al., 2003; Parmesan,2006; Amano et al., 2010; Singer and Parmesan, 2010;Chen et al., 2011).Indicator selectionClimate change directly influences physiologicalprocesses of animal and plant species, especiallyenergy and water budgets, and can in extremecases lead to death by desiccation or freezing. Forwarm-adapted species, climate change may be morebeneficial while for cold-adapted species climatechange tends to be more harmful (Hoffmann et al.,2012). To adapt to these changes, species haveseveral options: 1) adapting temporally, i.e. changingtheir life-cycle within a year (their phenology)according to altered climatic conditions throughoutthe year, 2) adapting spatially, i.e. change thedistribution ranges to follow suitable climaticconditions, and 3) microevolution by adaptingphysiologically. As species interact with each other,but responses to climate change are more or lessidiosyncratic, this can have fundamental impactson the co-occurrence of species in time and space,potentially disrupting interactions between species.128 Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2012