Chapter ?. Biodiversity and Global Climate Change ......

Amanda Isbell

Introduction

Biodiversity is defined as the genes, species, habitats, and ecosystems of a planet (Sell, 1996; Feehan, 2009). These collective ecosystems are important to mankind, because they provide necessary products and services that have become integral to human society. Such resources include, but are not limited to: pest control, climate regulation, food supply, and recreational aesthetics. Species and their ecosystems have had a variety of responses to rising global temperatures, including migration patterns, decreasing range sizes, and a change in host organisms (Feehan, 2009). This leads many scientists to believe that the changing climate could play a direct role in biodiversity changes (Pimm, 2009). This chapter focuses on the impact of climate change on biodiversity, and specific species that are sensitive to the environmental changes.

Biodiversity

According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report, biodiversity is the variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part. This includes diversity within species, between species, and of ecosystems. This is an important definition to understand, because it demonstrates how many factors must be considered when accounting for the biodiversity of a certain space. Each of these aspects is inherently significant to the success of the species and habitats contained within a system, and thus, the biodiversity of the system. Biodiversity is responsible for things such as timber products, the preservation of exotic species, food supply, the protection of water sources, and the variety of genetic material in an ecosystem. These are resources that have become vital to mankind. And yet, as essential as they are to a functioning society, recent studies suggest that extinction rates are high and increasing, and populations and habitats are declining in number (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,

MEA, 2006). Figure 1. shows the decline in the populations of vertebrate species since 1970 (MEA, 2006).

Figure 1 The Living Planet Index (Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2006)

Although this figure is not an accurate representation for non-vertebrates, it demonstrates the trend of decreasing species numbers in recent decades. This presents a problem for society. Biodiversity is usually associated with animal and plant species, which has caused its role in everyday human life to become overlooked. But this trend of decline could affect the quality of human life as well. For example, in a 2000 report, 25% of medical prescriptions acquired their active ingredients from plant systems (Waldman and Shevah, 2000). Should the projected decreases of species happen, we could potentially lose some of these ingredients in their natural state.

Causes of Biodiversity Change

There are numerous sources that influence biodiversity change. Some anthropogenic factors include increased urbanization, the modification of river systems,

habitat fragmentation due to infrastructure expansion, and the destruction of ecosystems for economic and resource usage (Feehan, 2009). The most common theme between the causes listed is that they fit under the category of land-use change. Land-use change has been accepted as the most important factor of biodiversity change in the current century (Sala and Jackson, 2006). A quantitative analysis completed in 1997 by Wilcove et al. showed that 85% of listed species they examined were threatened by habitat change (Beatley, 2000). This is concerning, because the regions most affected by land-use change also tend to be the most biologically diverse. For example, tropical forests along the equator contain somewhere between 50-90% of the species of the world (Sell, 1996). Projections of vascular plant species show that these same regions will lose the most biodiversity, with Tropical-Africa sustaining the most losses and Indo-Malayan the second-most (MEA, 2006). Another significant cause of biodiversity change is nutrient loading. Nutrient loading is defined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment as anthropogenic increases in nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, and other nutrientassociated pollutants. In recent decades, nitrogen loading has become increasingly popular due to its agricultural production benefits (MEA, 2006). Figure 2. shows nitrogen
Figure 2. Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

released into the

atmosphere per year and the rising usage. This graph demonstrates that current trends carry projected nitrogen emissions past the range that ecosystems can convert into beneficial products. Once this level has been reached, harmful effects can occur that negate any beneficial crop yield. Such effects include: eutrophication of freshwater ecosystems, hypoxia in coastal marine ecosystems, as well as nitrous oxide emissions that pollute the atmosphere and contribute to global climate change (MEA, 2006). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment considers land-use change and nutrient loading to be two of the three most significant drivers of biodiversity change. The third is climate change, which will be discussed in detail in the next section.

The Impact of Global Climate Change

Climate change may not be the largest cause of biodiversity change on its own, but it has been shown exacerbate the effects of other factors, and vice versa. For example, fragmented populations are more susceptible to the effects of climate change than non-fragmented populations (de Chazal, 2009). Fragmented populations are already vulnerable to ecosystem change due in part to a lack of genetic diversity that limits the ability of these populations to adapt to a new environment (MEA, 2006). When combined together, these factors increase the potential of extinction for at-risk species (de Chazal, 2009) and those that have small habitat ranges (Feehan, 2009). Although climate change is the largest threat to biodiversity when in consideration with other factors, it does present issues of its own. In general, these are range shifts, range losses, and population declines (Thuiller et all, 2005). More specifically, climate change is expected to decrease water availability, increase the risk of floods and wildfires, and increase the transmission of vector-borne diseases in areas previously unaffected (MEA, 2006). In the next addition, this chapter will delve into more specific details of the impact that climate change has on global biodiversity. I will also chose example species that are thought to be the most sensitive to global climate change and briefly discuss why.

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