detection, impacts, prediction and adaptation.
More information If you or your organisation/society would like to help shape this exciting conference, please contact Dr Gretta Pecl (
[email protected]) or Professor Stephen Williams (Stephen.
[email protected]). We would welcome suggestions for Theme Organisers, Workshops, Session Chairs and Plenary Speakers.
The global redistribution of our planets’ species is widely recognised as a fingerprint of climate change. However, the mechanisms that underpin such range shifts are poorly understood. Additionally, the pervasiveness of range shifts, from poles to the equator, and depths of oceans to tops of mountains, provides us with a unique opportunity to advance our theory of biogeography, evolutionary ecology and macroecology. Our move into the ‘anthropocene’ allows unprecedented opportunity to understand the mechanisms that drive species distributions across ecosystems and address the fundamental tenet of ecology: what lives where and why? However, such dramatic changes also pose significant challenges for sustainable management of our natural resources. We see this conference targeting scientists and natural resource managers working in the disciplines of global change, biogeography and evolution. It will be relevant in the contexts of natural resource management, biodiversity management and conservation, and theoretical ecology. Species’ responses to climate change is a rapidly evolving research field, however, much of our progress is being made in independent research areas: e.g. understanding the process vs responding to the implications, terrestrial vs marine ecosystems, global meta-analyses vs in depth species-specific approaches. This interdisciplinary conference is expected to develop connections between these parallel streams, and across temporal and spatial scales.
Hobart | Tasmania | Australia 10 –12 February 2016 speciesonthemove.com
1
Implications of species range change for health, food security and ecosystem services
Based on business as usual emission scenarios, climate model projections suggest the rate of climate change will accelerate in the foreseeable future. Hence, we could be observing even more changes in species’ future ranges. This has implications for human health, species conservation, food security and ecosystem services. Through sharing information on both observed and expected implications of range changes and possible solutions we hope to facilitate development of novel and improved management responses in a range of areas dependent on healthy natural systems.
2
Detection, attribution, and facilitation of range change
Detection of range changes and the attribution to climate change remain key challenges - methods developed for attributing physical changes may be modified to resolve climate and non-climate contributions to change. Changes in some species’ ranges may be advantageous for industry and society. If so, methods of facilitating change, such as enabling corridors and translocation, may be viewed more favourably. Once facilitation (of the range change) has commenced we need to have sufficient power to detect any changes are consistent with expectation and a range of approaches for evaluating progress are needed.
3
Changing distributions and conservation paradigms
Photos by P. Walsh and A. Cooper
Despite widespread concern, the continuing effectiveness of existing conservation paradigms under projected 21st century climate change is uncertain. Shifts in species’ distributions could mean existing approaches will cease to afford protection to those species for which they were originally intended. Additionally, a new suite of species may colonize and establish viable populations. An increasing rate of turnover of species in any given area creates a number of challenges for conservation that may require more rigorous testing and evaluation of our current paradigms to assess how robust they are under a changing climate.
4
Biological adaptation at the species level - physiology & genetics
Understanding how behaviour, physiology, morphology and the interspecific interactions of an organism are directly affected by the climatic conditions at a local scale is a critical part of increasing understanding of species range limits and how these could change in the future. However, It is equally important to consider evolutionary potential when assessing
Co-convernors
Gretta Pecl Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, UTAS, Tasmania, Australia Stephen Williams Centre for Tropical Biodiversity & Climate Change, JCU, Australia
Organising Committee
John Pandolfi University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland Alistair Hobday CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Hobart, Tasmania Lucy Robinson Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, Hobart, Tasmania Brett Scheffers Centre for Tropical Biodiversity & Climate Change, JCU, Townsville, Queensland Stewart Frusher Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, UTAS, Hobart, Tasmania
potential shifts in range and abundance, since a species distribution limit is as much an evolutionary constraint as it is an ecological one. Improving the accuracy of predicted change in the distribution of these species and their associated impacts will be improved through a better understanding of the mechanistic links between climate and organisms, and a consideration of evolutionary responses.
5
Cultural, social and economic dimensions of range shifts and changing ecosystems
The impacts of species range shifts and changing ecosystems often extend beyond environmental domains to human cultural, social and economic dimensions. Changing distributions of species that are ecosystem engineers, form habitats for other species, or underpin food production systems can have significant social or economic impacts. The implications of such shifts are often most serious in highly climate sensitive environments, those affected by poverty, or with subsistence agro-based livelihoods. Moreover, the culture of many people and places is intimately tied to both the climate and the local ecology. Cultural, social and economic dimensions are of critical importance in understanding the impacts of shifting species distributions, and in developing appropriate adaptation responses.
6
Governance, legal and ethical issues for managing shifting species and changing ecosystems
There are ethical, legal and governance issues that arise when management intervention is considered in response to changes in species range. As the rate of climate change accelerates and food security issues potentially become more prevalent, so may the debates over whether various management interventions are defensible based on legal, moral and regulatory grounds.
7
Modelling Change from Molecules to Ecosystems: Understanding and representing multi-scale mechanisms that link climate, humans and living resources
Understanding of the climate system and its representation within climate models has progressed to a point where many climate model outputs are used effectively in a variety of modelling approaches. However, uncertainty in climate model projections, coarse climate model resolution, and the uncertainty and potential complexity of the mechanisms underlying ecological, biological, ecosystem and human responses to climate limit the robustness and precision of projections. Collaboration between modellers and a shared understanding of critical challenges, such as the multi-scale mechanisms than link climate, humans and other species, are essential for improving the robustness of projections of climate impacts.
Steering Committee
I-Ching Chen Department of Life Sciences, National Cheng-Kung University, Taiwan Cascade Sorte Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of California - Irvine, USA Miguel B. Araújo Imperial College London, UK & National Museum of Natural Sciences, CSIC, Spain Erik Wapstra School of Biological Sciences, University of Tasmania, Australia Anthony Dell National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, NGRREC, USA, Casandra De Young Department of Fisheries & Aquaculture, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Italy Robert Colwell Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs CT, USA Finn Danielsen Nordic Foundation for Development and Ecology (NORDECO), Denmark.
SPECIES ON THE
MOVE
speciesonthemove.com
