Effects of Climate Change on Grassland Biodiversity and Productivity: The Need for a Diversity of Models

Abstract

There is increasing evidence that the impact of climate change on the productivity of grasslands will at least partly depend on their biodiversity. A high level of biodiversity may confer stability to grassland ecosystems against environmental change, but there are also direct effects of biodiversity on the quantity and quality of grassland productivity. To explain the manifold interactions, and to predict future climatic responses, models may be used. However, models designed for studying the interaction between biodiversity and productivity tend to be structurally different from models for studying the effects of climatic impacts. Here we review the literature on the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and productivity of grasslands. We first discuss the availability of data for model development. Then we analyse strengths and weaknesses of three types of model: ecological, process-based and integrated. We discuss the merits of this model diversity and the scope for merging different model types.

Impact of mowing frequency and temperature on the production of temperate grasslands: explanations received by an individual‐based model

“…Process‐based grassland models investigated, so far, the impact of different management with respect to mowing intensity and climate change (Kipling et al 2016, van Oijen et al 2018). They often focused on consequences for other trophic levels, e.g.…”

Combined use of environmental and spectral variables with vegetation archives for large-scale modeling of grassland habitats

“…This new national grassland habitat map should contribute to the field of ecology. First, an improved comprehension of grassland habitat functioning could be provided by: (i) deriving landscape indicators of conservation status such as fragmentation (Fletcher et al, 2018), (ii) quantifying the value of ecosystem services such as carbon storage (Zhao et al, 2020), or (iii) modeling the resilience of grassland habitats to climate change (Van Oijen et al, 2018). Second, the protection and conservation of these ecosystems could be strengthened by: (i) a better delineation of protected areas, checking the consistency of the current protected areas with the spatial distribution of grassland habitats, (ii) a better evaluation of the effectiveness of conservation policies in protected areas, which has been done to date with land-cover maps (Kallimanis et al, 2015), (iii) a more comprehensive inventory of grassland habitats, especially outside protected areas (Deák et al, 2020).…”

“…While grassland habitats support many ecosystem services such as biodiversity maintenance, carbon storage, and forage provision, the intensity of their performance is habitat-specific (Zhao et al, 2020). Furthermore, whereas agricultural intensification, urbanization, and climate change stress all grassland habitats (Ali et al, 2016; Van Oijen et al, 2018), some of them are significantly threatened (Gigante et al, 2018; Janssen et al, 2016). Thus, large-scale mapping of grassland habitats is essential to monitor their extent and fragmentation and to measure the efficiency of conservation policies (Mücher et al, 2009).…”

How do we best synergize climate mitigation actions to co‐benefit biodiversity?

“…About 50% of Brazilian Cerrado has been transformed for use in agriculture and pastures, while African savannahs are also under large land‐use change pressure (Aleman et al, 2016; Lehman & Parr, 2016). Formerly occupying ~8% of the land surface, natural temperate grasslands are now considered one of the most endangered biomes in the world (Carbutt et al, 2017; van Oijen et al, 2018). Less than 5% of global temperate grasslands are currently protected (Carbutt et al, 2017).…”