Climate Change Escape Routes

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Escaping climate change? Source: NSF; Credit: H. Brown, Scottish Association of Marine Science.


Published: November 4, 2011

Updated: November 4, 2011

Topic Editor: Sidney Draggan

Source: National Science Foundation


One if by land, two if by sea? Results of a study published in the Science [Science Magazine, 4 November 2011] show how fast animal and plant populations would need to move to keep up with climate effects in the ocean and on land. .

The study was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and performed in part through the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis.

"That average rates of environmental change in the oceans and on land are similar is not such a surprise," says Henry Gholz, program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology. "But averages deceive," Gholz says, "and this study shows that rates of change are at times greater in the oceans than on land--and as complex as the currents themselves."

Lobsters may need to keep up the pace to "out-run" the effects of climate. Credit: Hugh Brown, SAMS

Greenhouse gases have warmed the land by approximately one degree Celsius since 1960.; however, ocean temperatures have generally experienced decline during most of the Holocene. (Rashid and Polyak, 2011) These temperatures may induce wild populations to adapt--or to be relocating. Although the oceans have experienced less warming overall, plants and animals need to move as quickly in the sea as they do on land to keep up with their preferred environments. On land, movement of 2.7 kilometers (1.6 miles) per year could be needed and in the oceans, movement of 2.2 kilometers (1.3 miles) per year could be needed.

"Not a lot of marine critters have been able to keep up with that," says paper co-author John Bruno, a marine ecologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "Being stuck in a warming environment can cause reductions in the growth, reproduction and survival of ecologically and economically important ocean life such as fish, corals and seabirds."

"With climate change we often assume that populations simply need to move poleward to escape warming, but our study shows that in the ocean, the escape routes are more complex," says ecologist Lauren Buckley of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, also a co-author of the paper. "For example, due to increased upwelling, marine life off the California coast would have to move south Than north to remain in its preferred environment."

"Some of the areas where organisms would need to relocate the fastest are important biodiversity hot spots, such as the coral triangle region in southeastern Asia," says lead author Mike Burrows of the Scottish Association of Marine Science.

See Also

References

  • Harunur Rashid and Leonid Polyak (2011) Abrupt Climate Change Revisited.  Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA

Media Contacts

Citation

(2011). Climate Change Escape Routes. Retrieved from http://editors.eol.org/eoearth/wiki/Climate_Change_Escape_Routes