Mechanisms matter: Predicting the ecological impacts of global change

Boult, Victoria L.; Evans, Luke C.

doi:10.1111/gcb.15527

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…We also found that the direction of extreme event impacts in the Arctic sometimes differed within and between biota and across extreme events (Figure 2). Although this highlights that the predictability of local responses to extreme events is low, and more empirical data is clearly required to better understand the mechanisms and processes involved, we echo the view that predictive modelling efforts are a useful addition to the toolkit required to tackle some of the current knowledge gaps (Sillmann et al, 2017;Boult and Evans, 2021). Empirical data derived from long-term, science-based monitoring programmes combined with e.g., remote sensing products greatly facilitates the development of hindcasting and forecasting models to assess previous and future conditions over large geographic areas and temporal scales.…”

Section: Consider Predictive Modelling and Ecosystem-level Impactsmentioning

confidence: 77%

Extreme event impacts on terrestrial and freshwater biota in the arctic: A synthesis of knowledge and opportunities

Beest

Barry²,

Christensen

et al. 2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and intensity across the Arctic, one of the planet’s most rapidly warming regions. Studies from southern latitudes have revealed that the ecological impacts of extreme events on living organisms can be severe and long-lasting, yet data and evidence from within the terrestrial Arctic biome appear underrepresented. By synthesizing a total of 48 research articles, published over the past 25 years, we highlight the occurrence of a wide variety of extreme events throughout the Arctic, with multiple and divergent impacts on local biota. Extreme event impacts were quantified using a myriad of approaches ranging from circumpolar modelling to fine-scale experimental studies. We also identified a research bias towards the quantification of impacts related to a few extreme event types in the same geographic location (e.g. rain-on-snow events in Svalbard). Moreover, research investigating extreme event impacts on the ecology of arthropods and especially freshwater biota were scant, highlighting important knowledge gaps. While current data allow for hypotheses development, many uncertainties about the long-term consequences of extreme events to Arctic ecosystems remain. To advance extreme event research in the terrestrial Arctic biome, we suggest that future studies i) objectively define what is extreme in terms of events and ecological impacts using long-term monitoring data, ii) move beyond single-impact studies and single spatial scales of observation by taking advantage of pan-Arctic science-based monitoring networks and iii) consider predictive and mechanistic modelling to estimate ecosystem-level impacts and recovery.

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Section: Consider Predictive Modelling and Ecosystem-level Impactsmentioning

confidence: 77%

Extreme event impacts on terrestrial and freshwater biota in the arctic: A synthesis of knowledge and opportunities

Beest

Barry²,

Christensen

et al. 2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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“…Linking community patterns with detailed mechanisms, such as context‐dependent growth rates, is a major challenge and currently has been attempted only at small scales (e.g., White et al, 2020). In future, modelling efforts might be better able to connect species physiology to large‐scale patterns observed for butterflies by using standardized schemes (Johnston et al, 2019), but this would require tighter integration of the cycle of data collection, theory, modelling and testing than is typically practised (Boult & Evans, 2021; Dietze et al, 2018). Finally, our data might contain observational errors, which have been shown to explain variation in community stability (de Mazancourt et al, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bioclimatic context of species' populations determines community stability

Evans

Melero

Schmucki

et al. 2022

Global Ecol Biogeogr

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“…For many ecological systems, continuous monitoring data of ecological quantities are unavailable. This limits the development and validation of data‐hungry process‐based models to a limited number of well‐studied systems (Boult & Evans, 2021).…”

Section: Applying Fa In Conservationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forecast‐based action for conservation

Boult

2023

Conservation Biology

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Extreme weather events pose an immediate threat to biodiversity, but existing conservation strategies have limitations. Advances in meteorological forecasting and innovation in the humanitarian sector provide a possible solution—forecast‐based action (FbA). The growth of ecological forecasting demonstrates the huge potential to anticipate conservation outcomes, but a lack of operational examples suggests a new approach is needed to translate forecasts into action. FbA provides such a framework, formalizing the use of meteorological forecasts to anticipate and mitigate the impacts of extreme weather. Based on experience from the humanitarian sector, I suggest how FbA could work in conservation, demonstrating key concepts using the theoretical example of heatwave impacts on sea turtle embryo mortality, and address likely challenges in realizing FbA for conservation, including establishing a financing mechanism, allocating funds to actions, and decision‐making under uncertainty. FbA will demand changes in conservation research, practice, and governance. Researchers must increase efforts to understand the impacts of extreme weather at more immediate and actionable timescales and should coproduce forecasts of such impacts with practitioners. International conservation funders should establish systems to fund anticipatory actions based on uncertain forecasts.

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Mechanisms matter: Predicting the ecological impacts of global change

Cited by 9 publications

References 9 publications

Extreme event impacts on terrestrial and freshwater biota in the arctic: A synthesis of knowledge and opportunities

Extreme event impacts on terrestrial and freshwater biota in the arctic: A synthesis of knowledge and opportunities

Bioclimatic context of species' populations determines community stability

Forecast‐based action for conservation

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