Document: DAV-3-17-2

Changes in patterns of plant and animal species richness in response to climate change.

CURRIE, D.J.*

Biology Department, University of Ottawa, Box 450, Station A, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5 Canada ¹

Abstract:
Global circulation models predict that climate is likely to change dramatically over the next century in response to increasing atmospheric CO2. How are the spatial patterns of species richness likely to respond to these changes? Contemporary variations in species richness of virtually all groups of organisms are strongly related to climate. Further, historical changes climate have been accompanied by changes in richness, as one would predict from contemporary richness-climate relationships. We have therefore used these relationships to forecast how patterns in the conterminous United States are likely to change in response to doubling of atmospheric CO2. Our models predict that the richness of ectotherm vertebrates is likely to increase everywhere in the U.S. Endotherm vertebrate richness (birds and mammals) is likely to increase in at high altitudes and in the Pacific Northwest. Moderate to dramatic decreases in richness should occur over most of the South. Ligneous plant species richness is likely to increase in the North and West, and remain approximately unchanged through most of the South, except in the Southwestern deserts, where dramatic decreases are predicted to occur. I would expect these changes to occur over quite long time scales (centuries).

Keywords: Species richness, trees, vertebrates, climate change

This abstract is being presented at: 10:45 AM in session:
Symposium # 20: Global Change in Forests: Interactions Among Biodiversity, Climate and Land Use.