BIO3082 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Global Warming, Ecosystem Services, Phenology
Lecture 15 – Ecosystem Level Changes
How Climate Effects on Single Species can Affect Whole Ecosystems
• Effect food webs
• Affects supporting services – e.g. trees for primary production
• Losing pines – provisioning effects
• Climate change affects ecosystem interactions, functions and services in
diverse terrestrial and aquatic habitats
• Climate change results in loss and modification of ecosystem services,
including supporting, regulating, provisioning and cultural services
Biodiversity Supports Ecosystem Productivity and Function
• Loss of species critical for ecosystem function
o Some species that are more physiologically susceptible to climate
change are also critical for ecosystem formation or function
o E.g. foundation species such as corals and trees
• Range and phenology shifts of species have caused asynchronicity, for e.g.
predator-prey relationships between daphnia and algae in aquatic systems
• One sixth of species are predicted to go extinct due to climate change
o Broad loss of biodiversity will impact on ecosystem productivity
o Loss of ecosystem productivity and function
Summarise how Climate Change can Affect Ecosystem Services
• Responses by individual species to climate change are not isolated
o Are connected through interactions with others at the same or adjacent
trophic levels
o Species can also modify environments and the climate system itself
• Ecosystems can buffer effects of climate change on individual species
• Climate-linked range and phenology changes of single organisms can have
wide-reaching effects on the entire ecosystem
Exemplify how Climate Change has Driven Expansions of a Pest or Parasite
• Direct ecosystem modification
o Anthropogenic climate change is directly modifying the
physicochemical properties of a range of ecosystems, e.g.
desertification, drying of freshwater bodies, and melting of polar ice
caps
• Climate linked expansions of pests, pathogens, and invasive species → caused
spectrum of effects in various ecosystems
• Linked to global warming – wiped out amphibians
Describe Effects of Expansions Other Species and Ecosystem Services
• Ecosystem services: goods and services derived from natural and managed
ecosystems
o 4 frameworks:
▪ Provisioning (1)
• Provided obtained from ecosystems
• E.g. food, water, energy, materials and genetic
resources
▪ Cultural (2)
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