COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY THE
URIARTE LAB Department of Ecology, Evolution &
Environmental Biology |
Research Projects |
Prospective Students |
Climate
change impacts on forest biodiversity: individual risk to sub-continental
impacts Collaborators Jim Clark, Duke
University Alan Gelfand,
Duke University Sean McMahon,
Smithsonian Institution Andrew Finlay,
Michigan State University Mike Dietze, Boston University Jacqueline
Mohan, University of Georgia Climate
change is rapidly transforming forests over much of the globe in ways that
are not anticipated by current science. Large-scale forest diebacks,
apparently linked to interactions involving drought, warm temperatures, and
interactions with other species, are becoming alarmingly frequent.
Models of biodiversity and climate have not provided guidance predicting such
responses. Instead models often predict potential numbers of
extinctions, but these forecasts not are linked in any mechanistic way to the
processes that could cause them. Both modeling
and field studies rely on aggregate metrics of species presence/absence or
relative abundance at regional scales, but climate affects individuals.
Aggregation of individual data to the species level,
hides or even qualitatively changes climate effects. By sampling and
analysis at the individual scale across continental variation in climate,
this study can link the individual scale processes to regional responses.
This study will exploit existing research sites and the new NEON
platform of sites for synthesis of models and data to determine when and
where predicting climate impacts on biodiversity is a plausible goal,
understand where surprises are likely to occur, and attribute those
predictions back to individual tree health and vulnerability to climate risk
factors. The collaboration involves six institutions. The
study will provide climate vulnerability forecasts for forest biodiversity
that are directly linked to the process scale. Our goal is provide
probabilistic forecasts for the joint distribution of forest responses to
climate change, including growth, reproduction, and mortality risk. For
scientists, US Forest Service researchers, and policy makers predictions will
anticipate combined risks of increasing drought and longer growing
seasons. Methods developed under this project will be disseminated
through training workshops for postdoctoral associates at other universities
and resource managers. Figure 1. Location, mean
annual precipitation, and mean annual temperature of the study sites.
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