Impacts of climate change on biodiversity in Israel: an expert assessment approach

Abstract

The Mediterranean region is both a global biodiversity hot spot and one of the biomes most strongly affected by human activities. Ecologists and land managers are increasingly required to advise on threats to biodiversity under foreseeable climate change. We used expert surveys to evaluate current understanding and uncertainties regarding climate change impacts on biodiversity in terrestrial, inland freshwater, and marine ecosystems of Israel. Finally, we propose a response strategy toward minimizing these changes. The surveys and the published literature indicated that the main climate change impacts in Israel include ongoing deterioration of freshwater habitats,

Future scenarios of marine resources and ecosystem conditions in the Eastern Mediterranean under the impacts of fishing, alien species and sea warming

“…Within this context, the marine ecosystem of the Israeli Mediterranean coast, located in the eastern part of the basin, has been altered in recent decades mainly due to species invasions, unsustainable fishing activities, and increasing water temperature 29 , 43 , 44 . As a result, great changes in its biodiversity and functioning have occurred 29 , 30 , 45 , 46 .…”

Collapse of the echinoid Paracentrotus lividus populations in the Eastern Mediterranean—result of climate change?

“…In contrast, recent surveys show that P. lividus is extremely rare. In hundreds of dives that are part of very extensive benthic surveys of coastal rocky reefs between the years 2010–2014 in northern Israel (along 80 Km of coastline including inside an active marine reserve in Rosh Hanikra, and on reefs in Haifa Bay and the Carmel coast area), a total of 19 individuals were found 20 21 . Although there is no pre-collapse long-term density dataset, numerous discussions with fishermen, divers and researchers suggest that this species was still common until the early-2000’s, and its populations have collapsed over the past ca.…”

Coordinated approaches for studying long-term ecosystem responses to global change

“…The seminar, supported by the Batsheva de Rothschild Fund of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, gathered international experts to discuss, and ultimately propose, a coordinated approach for a 'National Platform for Long-Term Global Change Research' in Israel. An Israeli program, in turn, can serve as a model for national-scale platforms, by virtue of Israel's location in a complex ecological junction spanning a relatively small spatial scale (Safriel 2010;Sternberg et al 2014). This seminar generated a cluster of papers by seminar participants, their colleagues and researchers who could not attend, but are conducting research of a similar nature, which comprise the Special Section of the current issue of Oecologia.…”