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PLOS Research Predicts Climate Change “Winners and Losers”: Slide Show

August 7, 2013 Katie Fleeman The Student Blog

A glimpse out the window shows the effects of climate change on the weather – but how will the rising seas and fluctuating weather patterns impact plant and animal populations? Biologists and ecologists are racing against rapidly changing habitats and vanishing species to identify which are the most vulnerable and why. The sixteen articles in PLOS’ “Ecological Impacts of Climate Change Collection,” as well as the accompanying posts on the PLOS Blogs Network, point out many species whose life cycles have changed and are at risk of dying out. The articles also note a number of species that seem more adaptable to the changing temperatures, including a few that may stand to benefit. The slide show below provides a glimpse into the changing ecosystems, with its “winners and losers.”

Click on any image to enter the slide show.

“Ecological Impacts of Climate Change” is a cross-PLOS Collection featuring previously published articles from PLOS ONE and PLOS Biology. Curated by PLOS ONE Academic Editor Dr. Ben Bond Lamberty, the articles use a variety of experimental and observational approaches to examine the impact of climate change.

3) Walden, Then and Now: Researchers examined long-term flowering records, started by Henry David Thoreau, and found that high spring temperatures in 2010 and 2012 resulted in the earliest flowering in recorded history, affecting, for example, this highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum).

4) Coffee Beans that Do Not Like it Hot: Two papers in the collection deliver a double whammy to coffee lovers, or more particularly the Coffea arabica plant, a species that accounts for more than 70 percent of the world’s coffee crop. The threat comes from warming air and land temperatures changing the distribution of a fierce enemy: the coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei). Ready for that second cup?

5) Good Times for Deadly Microbial Hitchhikers: Tracking a Deadly Pest The Asian Tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, hides out in shipping containers and carries what researchers call a “high disease vector potential” including: West Nile fever, dengue fever, yellow fever, and two types of encephalitis. Now for the really bad news: it has a special affinity for humans, and for the hotter, wetter environments brought by climate change to places like the Northeastern U.S.

6) The Mystery of the Missing Grebes: Ecologists couldn’t find the cause for sharp declines of Pacific western grebes (Aechmophorus occidentalis) from their traditional aquatic wintering grounds in Southern British Columbia. With help from thousands of citizen scientists, the grebes were found to have moved a full 900km south, most likely in response to the sudden absence of their primary forage fish, sardines and smelt — another likely climate change impact.

7) Are Coral Adapting to Warming Oceans? The loss of algae due to warming oceans starves many species of coral, and manifests in their loss of color or bleaching. Coral vulnerability and adaptation were central themes for researchers working in southeast Asia who reported that corals under heat stress showed lower bleaching susceptibility at locations that bleached a decade earlier, implying an adaptive response, possibly due to a molecular mechanism enabling coral thermal tolerance.

8) Sad Poster Child for Low Adaptability: The polar bear is exquisitely adapted to its icy environment, but with glaciers melting at an alarming rate, this high suitability for one habitat, and the polar bear’s accompanying low genetic diversity, may well be its undoing in a warmer world.

9) Where in the World?: This shows areas which are home to today’s most vulnerable birds (A), amphibians (C), and coral (E). Blue means greatest concentrations of species with high sensitivity and low adaptive capacity while yellow shows areas with high exposure alone. Maroon refers to areas with high concentrations of highly sensitive species with low adaptive capabilities. Maps B, D and F show show the proportions of the respective species that are living in regions that are climate change vulnerable. Data comes from the largest assessment of its kind, part of the PLOS Ecological Impacts of Climate Change Collection.

To read more:

LaRue MA, Ainley DG, Swanson M, Dugger KM, Lyver PO, et al. (2013) Climate Change Winners: Receding Ice Fields Facilitate Colony Expansion and Altered Dynamics in an Adélie Penguin Metapopulation
Foden WB, Butchart SHM, Stuart SN, Vié J-C, Akçakaya HR, et al. (2013) Identifying the World’s Most Climate Change Vulnerable Species: A Systematic Trait-Based Assessment of all Birds, Amphibians and Corals
Ellwood ER, Temple SA, Primack RB, Bradley NL, Davis CC (2013) Record-Breaking Early Flowering in the Eastern United States
Coffee Plants Don’t Like it Hot
Climate Change Means Good Times for Microbial Hitchhikers
Wilson S, Anderson EM, Wilson ASG, Bertram DF, Arcese P (2013) Citizen Science Reveals an Extensive Shift in the Winter Distribution of Migratory Western Grebes.
Foden WB, Butchart SHM, Stuart SN, Vié J-C, Akçakaya HR, et al. (2013) Identifying the World’s Most Climate Change Vulnerable Species: A Systematic Trait-Based Assessment of all Birds, Amphibians and Corals
Polar Bear Genome Reflects Climate Change
Foden WB, Butchart SHM, Stuart SN, Vié J-C, Akçakaya HR, et al. (2013) Identifying the World’s Most Climate Change Vulnerable Species: A Systematic Trait-Based Assessment of all Birds, Amphibians and Corals

Image credits:

Penguins: winkyintheuk via flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/winkyintheuk/20927113/); Michael Van Woert via public domain (http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/htmls/corp2566.htm).
Frogs: Václav Gvoždík (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cardioglossa_leucomystax04.jpg); Brian Gratwicke via Fotopedia (http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-7154392800)
Highbush blueberry: Rob Hille (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vaccinium_corymbosum.R.H_(2).jpg)
Coffee: Forest & Kim Starr (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Starr_070617-7324_Coffea_arabica.jpg)
Mosquito: James Gathany, CDC (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CDC-Gathany-Aedes-albopictus-1.jpg)
Grebe: Linda Tanner (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aechmophorus_occidentalis_-California-8.jpg)
Coral: Oregon State University (http://www.flickr.com/photos/oregonstateuniversity/7008825923/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Polar Bear: Flickr Favorites (http://www.flickr.com/photos/38485387@N02)
Map: Wendy Foden et al (http://www.ploscollections.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0065427)

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