Macroecology of environmental change response

@PSJorgensen @Macroecology

Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate

University of Copenhagen

Macroecology of environmental

change response

PhD defense

Peter Søgaard Jørgensen

June 30 2014


Biodiversity and environmental change through deep time

Rohde & Muller Nature 2005

Millions of years ago

Tho

usa

nd

s o

f g

en

era

Rohde & Muller 2005

- major mass extinctions

- minor -

image: wikipedia.org


Early human influence on biodiversity

• ca. 1000 species of non-passerine landbirds go extinct in the pacific due to human colonization

Biodiversity and environmental change in recent time

http://www.transpacificproject.com/ http://abagond.wo

rdpress.com/2011/02/18/human-migrations/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations

Duncan et al. 2013

http://kids.britannica.com/

images: wikipedia.org, britannica.com


Steffen et al. 2004, 2011

The great acceleration of the human environmental footprint


How is anthropogenic climate change different from other environmental changes?

NASA, http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/


How is anthropogenic climate change different from other environmental changes?

NASA, http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/


Large scale responses can most reliably be attributed to anthropogenic climate change

Parmesan et al. 2011

Spatial extent of study

Co

nfi

de

nce

in a

ttri

bu

tio

n


Kerr et al. 2007


Continental surveys of biodiversity - a rare chance to understand large-scale effects of climate change


Aims of the thesis

• use a macroecological approach to investigate species temporal response to global environmental change

• focus on the effects of climate change on common breeding birds of Europe and North America


Predicted responses to climate change

1. Collapsing population cycles 2. Increased synchrony between populations 3. Poleward shifts in occurrence 4. Poleward shifts in abundance 5. Change in community composition 6. Increasing species richness in temperate regions 7. Destabilization of populations and communities 8. Population or species extinctions

Effects on particular life-history strategies 9. Effects on early versus late breeding species 10. Effects on migratory species

Each of the examples below constitute climate change effects that may considered as hypothesis for the macroecological study of environmental change response at the population, community and species level. For each example a brief introduction to the argument of the hypothesis and the nature of existing evidence is provided. At the end of each hypothesis any contributions from the present thesis to the topic are outlined.


Conceptual aims and contributions

• strengthen cross-scale inference of species level environmental change responses (Ch. 1,2)

• synthesize contributions from the ecological sciences that may help solve major societal challenges (Ch. 8)


The macroecology of environmental change response

1. Validate observations (Chapter 1,2)

2. Initial investigation (Ch. 3) (winners & losers)

3. Evaluate drivers (Ch. 3,4)

4. Establish generality (Ch. 4-8)

1: Validate observations (II) distinguishing naturally rare, from threatened species

across taxa (VII)


A host of methods with different spatial and temporal scales of application

Chapter 2 Chapter 1, fig. 3

FUTURE PAST

Ecology is a young field - new use of methods accelerated by a growing human footprint


Case: Are the species we see today naturally rare or rare because of humans??

Hung et al. 2014 Photo cred: Allen Brooks, CLO; ibc.lynxeds.com | Case studies: Johnson et al. 2009; Chapter 2

fos.auckland.ac.nz

time present past time

po

pu

lati

on

siz

e

present past


When should genetic reconstruction be most accurate?

• Large declines more likely to decrease genetic diversity

• Genetic diversity changes with a lag

• Genetic reconstruction should be more accurate for large and less recent population declines

Palsbøll et al. 2013

Larger declines leave greater genetic fingerprint Declines that happened longer ago will have had more time to decrease genetic diversity

fos.auckland.ac.nz

Chapter 2, fig. 3&4

size of decline

gro

wth

rat

e d

ista

nce

generations since decline


Can population genetics distinguish the naturally from the recent rare ?

• Yes, but scale matters

• Most reliable particularly when species have gone through large and less recent declines

Chapter 2



1. Validate observations

2. Initial investigation (winners & losers)

3. Evaluate drivers

4. Establish generality


across taxa (VII)


How many are we in the room?


How many blackbirds are in the Kingdom of Denmark?

How could we find out?


Just another breeding bird survey

(watermelon combo)





3. Evaluate drivers



across taxa (VII)


Population dynamics, temporal-scale and global change


the three patterns are not redundant

decline of long-distance migrants

Winners and losers in the global change response of European breeding birds

www.ebcc.info/pecmbs

decline of farmland specialists

poleward shifts in abundance

hot

cold

Gregory et al. 2009, PECBMS, Heldbjerg & Fox 2008 Chapter 3, fig 2

http://www.ebcc.info/pecmbs





3. Evaluate drivers



across taxa (VII)


Testing drivers: Moving from indirect to direct assessment of causes of change

• How do we move from indirect to more direct inference of drivers of population change?

• Conditions that causes population fluctuations over the short-term are candidate drivers for long-term change

Chapter 3


Chapter 3

What conditions cause population change among migratory strategies?


Species richness is highest in the tropics

www.fao.org - 2014

Somveille et al. 2013

Chapter 4 Orme et al. 2005

number of species

http://www.fao.org/


www.fao.org - 2014

http://www.constantinealexander.net/2012/04/arctic-birds-migrate-earlier-under-climate-change.html

worldmigratorybirdday.org

Somveille et al. 2013

migrant proportion

Chapter 4

http://www.fao.org/


The seasonal impact of climate change may determine composition of future breeding bird communities

Winter

tmp

Spring

NDVI

Summer

tmp

Autumn

spe

cie

s ri

chn

ess

(w

ith

in g

rou

p)

residents short-distance migrants long-distance migrants

x TC x TC

Chapter 3, fig 1,4

Effe

ct o

n a

nn

ual

g

row

th r

ate


Within region analysis

How does tropical climate change affect long-distance migrants?

logistic regression

Chapter 4, suppl. figs

breeding area

wintering area

How could we find out?


Predictions from recent climate change

• Many parts of the tropics have seen increasing precipitation and vegetation greenness

Chapter 4


Responses of tropical migrants to recent tropical climate change

Chapter 4, fig 1,2

peak resource length (months)

lag

ge

d

dir

ect

re

spo

nse

me

an r

esp

on

se

short-term response

reproduction

mortality



Chapter 4, fig 1,2

latitude

lon

g-t

erm

gro

wth

rat

e

abu

nd

ance

-re

sou

rce

co

rre

lati

on

long-term patterns



Chapter 4, fig 1,2

climate change migrants climate change migrants


Can we use short-term fluctuations in population size to build expectations of climate change effects?

• Yes

• The combination of short- and long-term perspectives improve tests of current explanations and generation of future predictions

Chapter 3 & 4


The macroecology of environmental change


2. Initial causal investigation

3. Evaluate hypothesized drivers



across taxa (VII)




across taxa (VII)

What is the potential for climate change to destabilize breeding bird populations?

Is there a general effect across Europe and North America?


Time series stability

Count(t) ~ Count(t-1) + Count(t-2)

stable

unstable

Chapter 5


Population stability decreases with mean temperature in 3 of 4 regions

Is stability related to climate?

Chapter 5, fig 1,3

-0.5

mean temperature

(+/- SD)

edginess unstable

stable


Is climate change already destabilizing breeding bird time series?

Chapter 6, fig 1

me

an

auto

corr

ela

tio

n

coe

ffic

ien

t

of

vari

atio

n

North America Europe

Indicators of decreasing stability


Breeding bird time series are slowing down in Europe and North America

Chapter 6, fig 2

slowing

down

speeding

up


What is the potential for climate change to destabilize breeding bird populations?

• Populations in warmer areas might be least resistant to climate change (3/4 regions)

• Population dynamics are slowing down as predicted from systems theory and climate change (both continents)

• Predictions for how other types of organisms will be affected by anthropogenic climate change?

Chapter 5 & 6



across taxa (VII)


2. Initial investigation

(winners and losers)

3. Evaluate drivers




Can macroecology help provide solutions to global societal challenges? 1: Validate observations (II)

distinguishing naturally rare, from threatened species

across taxa (VII)



log(generation time)

log

(po

pu

lati

on

siz

e)

Conservation Biology:

CONTEMPORARY EVOLUTION

Crops Livestock

Medicine: Human

epithelia Medicine:

Human bone marrow

All: Viral &

microbial pathogens, mutualists,

commensals

Agriculture & Natural resources:

Multicellular

pests, weeds, invasive species

Medicine: Human neurons

Medicine: Human fat cells

Annual organisms

Trees

All:

Pollinators

Medicine: Humans

PHENOTYPE-ENVIRONMENT

MISMATCH

Chapter 8, fig1

Life history variation (of life)

pending final decision at Science

Antibiotics crisis & pesticide resistance

Emerging infectious disease

Sixth mass extinction?

Chronic life-style disease


?

Macroecology & the Post 2015 agenda?

• Goal 1: Thriving lives and livelihoods

• Goal 2: Sustainable food security

• Goal 3: Secure sustainable water

• Goal 4: Universal clean energy

• Goal 5: Healthy and productive ecosystems

• Goal 6: Governance for sustainable societies

Griggs et al. 2013 Chapter 8

?


Macroecology & the Post 2015 agenda?

• Goal 1: Thriving lives and livelihoods

• Goal 2: Sustainable food security

• Goal 3: Secure sustainable water

• Goal 4: Universal clean energy

• Goal 5: Healthy and productive ecosystems

• Goal 6: Governance for sustainable societies

Griggs et al. 2013 Chapter 8


Thank you! PECBMS Thanks for help, advice and support, special thanks to the data providers &

organisations responsible for national data collection and analysis:

Norbert Teufelbauer, Michael Dvorak, Christian Vansteenwegen, Anne Weiserbs, Jean-Paul Jacob, Anny Anselin, Svetoslav Spasov, Derek Pomeroy, Martin

Heldbjerg, Michael Grell, Andres Kuresoo, Jaanus Elts, Frederic Jiguet, Risto Väisänen, Martin Flade, Johannes Schwarz, Alexander Mitschke,Theodoros Kominos, Antonia Galanaki, Tibor Szép, Károly Nagy, Olivia Crowe, Dick Coombes, Lorenzo Fornasari, Elisabetta de Carli,

Foppen, Magne Husby, Przemek Chylarecki, Geoff Hilton, Ricardo Martins, Zoltan Szabo, Alexander

Escandell, Ramón Martí, Sergi Herrando, Lluis Brotons, Åke Lindström, Sören Svensson, Hans Schmid, David Noble. Adriaan Gmelig Meyling. Ian Burfield, Juha Tiainen, Romain Julliard, Ward Hagemeijer,Norbert Schäffer, Nicola Crockford, Zoltan Waliczky, David Gibbons, Simon Wotton, Adrian Oates, Gregoire Loïs, Dominique Richard, Anne Teller, Jeremy Greenwood, Sylvia Barova, Jose Tavares, Uygar Ozesmi, Maris

Vermouzek.


Eric Post Carsten Rahbek Scott Carroll Kasper Thorup

supervision & collaboration

Philip Francis Eline Lorenzen Anders Tøttrup

help on projects

Mirnesa Rizvanovic Sonal Singhal Ben Blonder Jonas Geldmann Katie Marske Miguel Araujo

a

Katherine Richardson

Georgina Mace

career advice, inspiration & support

Steven Wilson Paul Ehrlich Hal Mooney Alan Covich



Thank you!

Human influence on biodiversity and the earth system

Environment in ecology from controversy to attribution

Date post:	18-Nov-2014
Category:	Science
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