Challenges in assessing and forecasting biodiversity and ecosystem changes in Europe

The Ecochange project is supported by the European Commission’s 6th Framework Programme as a 5 year Integrated Project from 2007-2011 under the Thematic Sub-Priority Global Change and Ecosystems. It is coordinated by Pierre Taberlet (LECA CNRS, Grenoble)

Summary

A range of advanced modelling approaches has been used to assess the impact of global change on biodiversity and ecosystems. These approaches yield projections of the distribution of species, communities and biomes and the functioning of ecosystems. Changes in the provision of goods and services are then assessed from these projections. However, four main limitations remain associated with these approaches:

   1. knowledge and data of past species distributions is still limited, yet necessary for testing them in the past before projecting them to the future;

   2. There is a lack of sound estimates of species’ long distance migration rates that are necessary to assess whether species will be able to keep pace with rapid global change;

   3. Some key assumptions of models, such as niche stability over time and/or space, are not well tested;

   4. There is a need for more reliable estimates of uncertainties in model predictions.

ECOCHANGE specifically proposes to go one step further by:

   1. Integrating different modelling approaches currently in use (niche-based, dynamic, dispersal, etc.), and by developing robust methodologies to estimate uncertainties associated with these projections;

   2. Generating required new data (palaeo & migration) by using innovative DNA-based approaches, and global change scenarios;

   3. Testing niche conservatism and temporal evolution of biological communities;

   4. Using the new data in improved and integrated models to make projections more robust and realistic;

   5. Testing these approaches specifically in ecosystems of Fennoscandian and the Alps and by expanding the current projections to all of Europe.

Scientific Partners:

LECA (France) : Pierre Taberlet, Ludovic Gielly, François Pompanon, Oscar Gaggiotti

            Wilfried Thuiller, Sébastien Lavergne, Francesco de Bello, Isabelle Boulangeat, Laure Zupan

UNIL (Swiss): Antoine Guisan, Julien Pottier, Luigi Maioranio, Anne Dubuis

WSL (Swiss): Niklaus Zimmernann, Peter Pearman, Elyane Meyer

SERI (Austria): Ines Oman, Lisa Bohunovsky

UKBH (Denmark): Eske Willerslev, Rasmus Nielsen

UiO (Norway): Christian Brochmann,

Univ. of Southampton  (United Kingdom): Mary E Edwards, Sarah Lomas-Clark

University of Basel (Switzerland): Christian Körner, Juerg Stöklin

Institute of Botany Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland): Zbigniew Mirek

Institute of Biological Research (Cluj-Napoca,  Romania): Gheorghe Coldean, Mihai Puscas

VINCA (Austria): Stefan Dullinger, Karl Hülber

Univ. of Tromsoe (Norway): Nigel G. Yoccoz, Kari-Anne Brathen

Univ. of Tartu (Estonia): Martin Zobel, Meelis Pärtel

CSIC (Madrid, Spain): Migueal B. Araujo, Emilio Civantos

Laboratory, A. Mickiewicz University (Poland): Tomasz Goslar

Wageningen Univ. (The Netherlands): Michael Schaepman, Zbynek Malenovsky

Univ of Liege (Belgium): Louis François

Zoological Institute Russian Academy of Sciences  (Russia): Alexei Tikhonov

Univ. of East Anglia  (United Kingdom): Keith Briffa, Philip Jones.

ALTERRA (The Netherlands): Sander Mücher

University of Edinburgh  (United Kingdom): Terry Dawson, Mark Rounsevell

Lunds Univ. (Sweden): Martin Sykes, Thomas Hickler