Climate, Evolution, and Biodiversity: Interdisciplinary Research for Conservation Grant uri icon

abstract

  • Science, as well as society, is increasingly concerned with how the global earth system, including its biotic components, will respond to anthropogenically driven environmental changes in the near future (Araújo and Rahbek 2006; Stocker 2013; Barnosky et al. 2014). A recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports conservative estimates of global temperature will rise at least 1.5C and very likely will exceed 2C over the next century (Stocker 2013). We are likely to experience disruption in the water and carbon cycle, more rapid warming, increasing contrast between wet and dry regions, increasing seasonality, and increasing sea level (Stocker 2013). An important research agenda for ecology and environmental biology is to understand the ecological impacts on species, if these impacts affect biodiversity and ecosystem function, and how these impacts affect society on the short and long term (Walther et al. 2002; Barnosky et al. 2014). My research program will investigate the most important mechanisms related to how species and communities respond to environmental changes, which will ultimately help society mitigate biodiversity loss and the loss of ecosystem services.

date/time interval

  • 2014 - 2019