I consider anthropogenic climate change to be one of the largest challenges facing Earth’s environment and society. I’m not alone in this concern; climate change is a topic that increasingly dominates the news, politics, scientific research and popular media, and this trend shows little sign of abating. As a geographer who is leaning precariously towards aquatic ecology, I find climate change most interesting within the context of its effect upon Earth’s fauna and flora, and in particular it’s freshwater aquatic communities.
There have already been measurable impacts from climatic change across all varieties of ecosystem, such as changes in spring phenology for birds and rapid range shifts to higher altitude and latitude for butterflies; both of these well documented (Walther et al., 2002). Possibly the greatest concern that conservation ecologists have about climate change however, is its potential to threaten global biodiversity. There is concern that the twin threats of habitat loss and climate change will prevent vulnerable species from adapting to a warming planet, as they could become trapped in areas of unsuitable conditions, leading to extinction.
This blog aims to explore the impact climate change could have upon freshwater aquatic ecosystem biodiversity, asking questions like “Will climate change really cause ‘mass extinctions' of freshwater species, or is this unrealistic?” and “How will the ecosystem structure and function of freshwater environments be affected by climate change?”. I hope that I will be able to provide some degree of answer!
Of course, its important to recognize that there more threats to freshwater biodiversity than just climate change and habitat loss, and that all these pressures will affect future biodiversity. As a reminder of some of the threats to general aquatic biodiversity have a look at this highly informative and well researched video:
References:
Walther, G., E. Post, P. Convey, A.Menzel, C.Parmesank, T.J.CBeebee, J. Fromentin, O.Hoegh-GuldbergI& F.Bairlein (2002)‘Ecological responses to recent climate change’, Nature, 416, 389-95.
