Final Memo for Integrated Assessment of Climate Change and Ecosystem Diversity
Dates
Publication Date
2017-12-19
Summary
Understanding of the influence of global warming has been limited by a paucity of experiments. Taking advantage of the largest, longest-running experimental warming of a forest, we convened dozens of scientists from across the world to collect data to study and understand how bacteria, fungi, herbivores, plant pathogens, insects and a diversity of other groups respond to warming. We found that warming had a significant impact on ecosystems at both a site in North Carolina, as well as a more northern site in Massachusetts. The types of effects, however, differed between the north and south; they also differed as a function of the organisms considered. While warming affected all levels of organization, it had the greatest impact on phenology. [...]
Summary
Understanding of the influence of global warming has been limited by a paucity of
experiments. Taking advantage of the largest, longest-running experimental warming of
a forest, we convened dozens of scientists from across the world to collect data to study
and understand how bacteria, fungi, herbivores, plant pathogens, insects and a diversity
of other groups respond to warming. We found that warming had a significant impact
on ecosystems at both a site in North Carolina, as well as a more northern site in
Massachusetts. The types of effects, however, differed between the north and south;
they also differed as a function of the organisms considered. While warming affected all
levels of organization, it had the greatest impact on phenology. Plants, microbes and
animals were impacted to a similar extent, though the direction of the response varied
by taxa, with some benefiting from warming, and other faring poorly. Warming
impacted above ground responses to a greater extent than belowground responses.
Overall, this experiment has provided us with a comprehensive picture of those taxa
most likely to thrive or fail in light of the temperatures that will be experienced in the
Southeast (and Northeast) in the next 100 years.
