Back to the No-Analog Future?

Fox, Douglas

doi:10.1126/science.316.5826.823

Cited by 60 publications

(32 citation statements)

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“…It has been commonly accepted that forest distribution during the mid-Holocene dry period can be used as analog of warming-induced forest distribution in the future [68].…”

Section: Main Approaches To Predicting the Future Forest Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Response of forest distribution to past climate change: An insight into future predictions

Liu

Yin

2013

Chin. Sci. Bull.

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Vegetation dynamics could lead to changes in the global carbon and hydrology cycle, as well as feedbacks to climate change. This paper reviews the response of forest dynamics to climate change. Based on palaeoecological studies, we summarized the features and modes of vegetation response to climate change and categorized the impacts of climate change on vegetation dynamics as three types: climate stress on vegetation, buffer effects by non-climatic factors, and perturbation of the vegetation distribution by stochastic events. Due to the openness of the vegetation system and the integrated effects of both climatic and non-climatic factors, the vegetation-climate relationship deviates far from its equilibrium. The vegetation distribution shows a non-linear response to climate change, which also makes it difficult to quantify the modern vegetation distribution in terms of specific climatic factors. Past analog, space-for-time-substitution and Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs) are three approaches to predicting the future vegetation distribution, but they have all been established on the assumption of vegetation-climate equilibrium. We propose that improving DGVMs is a future task for studies of vegetation dynamics because these are process-based models incorporating both disturbance (e.g. fire) and the variability in Plant Functional Types (PFTs). However, palaeoecological results should be used to test the models, and issues like spatial and temporal scale, complexity of climate change, effects of non-climatic factors, vegetation-climate feedback, and human regulation on vegetation dynamics are suggested as topics for future studies. . Will global warming lead to the expansion or decline of forests in the future? Will measures taken to address climate change concerns, such as the forestation of grasslands, successfully expand the distribution of the forest or have the reverse effect? These scientific and practical questions have been the focus of extensive discussion in the scientific community [5]. In China, for example, as an adaptation to climate change, the area covered by forest will increase from the current 20% to 23% in 2020. Due to the lack of physical space in the wet climate zone, much planting is taking place in the current forest-steppe ecotone [6]. Will the future climate benefit forests in the current forest-steppe ecotone? To answer this question we need to make accurate predictions of future climate forcings of vegetation dynamics. Vegetation dynamics in the past and present are critical to predictions of vegetation response to climate change in the future [7]. Through a review of previous work, we have attempted to summarize the general principles and modes of vegetation response to climate change, and to explore how to accurately predict climate-induced changes in vegetation under the future climate change scenarios.

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“…It has been commonly accepted that forest distribution during the mid-Holocene dry period can be used as analog of warming-induced forest distribution in the future [68].…”

Section: Main Approaches To Predicting the Future Forest Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Response of forest distribution to past climate change: An insight into future predictions

Liu

Yin

2013

Chin. Sci. Bull.

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“…Yet in urban settings where human control and cultivation of the landscape have long been the dominant paradigm, the designer approach may make sense for both human and ecological reasons. With radical changes predicted for many areas of the world due to global climate change, the arti fi cial nature of cities may make them ideal laboratories and testing grounds for new ecological assemblages (Fox 2007 ;Hobbs et al 2009 ;Link 2008 ) and reservoirs for future adapted species through assisted migration (e.g., Minteer and Collins 2010 ) . Human population growth and land use changes are also driving ecologists to search for alternative restoration approaches that can maintain their ecological resilience while accommodating human preferences and impacts (Hitchmough and de la Fleur 2006 ) .…”

Section: Designer and Accidental Ecosystemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alternative Approaches to Urban Natural Areas Restoration: Integrating Social and Ecological Goals

Gobster

2012

Forest Landscape Restoration

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“…If species exhibit modal distributions with respect to most natural environmental gradients (sensu Whittaker 1967, Austin andSmith 1989), novel gradients produced via anthropogenic activity can fall outside the range of conditions experienced by a species over evolutionary time (Hobbs et al 2006, Fox 2007, Williams and Jackson 2007. Depending on the intensity of the novel gradient and species-specific tolerances, we generally expect a decline in abundance and occurrence with increasing departures from natural conditions, similar to the truncated distributions often observed at extremes of natural gradients (Fig.…”

Section: A Flawed Premisementioning

confidence: 99%

A critique of the use of indicator-species scores for identifying thresholds in species responses

Cuffney¹,

Qian²

2013

Freshwater Science

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Back to the No-Analog Future?

Cited by 60 publications

References 0 publications

Response of forest distribution to past climate change: An insight into future predictions

Response of forest distribution to past climate change: An insight into future predictions

Alternative Approaches to Urban Natural Areas Restoration: Integrating Social and Ecological Goals

A critique of the use of indicator-species scores for identifying thresholds in species responses

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