Past and future global transformation of terrestrial ecosystems under climate change

Connor Nolan (1) , Jonathan T. Overpeck (1) , Judy R. M. Allen (2) , Patricia M. Anderson , Julio L. Betancourt , Heather A. Binney (3) , Simon Brewer (4) , Mark M. Bush , Brian M. Chase (5) , Rachid Cheddadi (5) , Morteza Djamali (6) , John Dodson , Mary E. Edwards , William D. Gosling , Simon Haberle (7) , Sara C. Hotchkiss , Brian Huntley , Sarah J. Ivory , A. Peter Kershaw , Soo-Hyun Kim , Claudio Latorre , Michelle Leydet (6) , Anne-Marie Lézine (8) , Kam-Biu Liu , Yao Liu , Anatoly V. Lozhkin , Matt S. Mcglone , Robert A. Marchant (9) , Arata Momohara , Patricio I. Moreno , Stefanie Müller (10) , Bette L. Otto-Bliesner (11) , Caiming Shen , Janelle Stevenson , Hikaru Takahara , Pavel E. Tarasov (10) , John Tipton , Annie Vincens (12) , Chengyu Weng , Qinghai Xu (13) , Zhuo Zheng (14) , Stephen T. Jackson (15)

1 Department of Geosciences [University of Arizona]
2 Department of Biosciences
3 University of Southampton
4 Utah Museum of Natural History, Department of Geography, University of Utah
5 UMR ISEM - Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier
6 IMBE - Institut méditerranéen de biodiversité et d'écologie marine et continentale
7 RSPS - Department of Archaeology and Natural History
8 VALCO - Variabilité à long terme du climat de l'océan
9 University of York [York, UK]
10 Freie Universität Berlin
11 NCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research [Boulder]
12 CEREGE - Centre européen de recherche et d'enseignement des géosciences de l'environnement
13 Hebei Normal University
14 School of Earth Science and Geological Engineering [Guangzhou]
15 Arizona Geological Survey

Impacts of global climate change on terrestrial ecosystems are imperfectly constrained by ecosystem models and direct observations. Pervasive ecosystem transformations occurred in response to warming and associated climatic changes during the last glacial-to-interglacial transition, which was comparable in magnitude to warming projected for the next century under high-emission scenarios. We reviewed 594 published paleoecological records to examine compositional and structural changes in terrestrial vegetation since the last glacial period and to project the magnitudes of ecosystem transformations under alternative future emission scenarios. Our results indicate that terrestrial ecosystems are highly sensitive to temperature change and suggest that, without major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, terrestrial ecosystems worldwide are at risk of major transformation, with accompanying disruption of ecosystem services and impacts on biodiversity.

Domains: Environmental Sciences; Global Changes

Connor Nolan, Jonathan T. Overpeck, Judy R. M. Allen, Patricia M. Anderson, Julio L. Betancourt, et al.. Past and future global transformation of terrestrial ecosystems under climate change. Science, 2018, 361 (6405), pp.920-923. ⟨10.1126/science.aan5360⟩. ⟨hal-01870934⟩