Abstract
Climate change is having a significant impact on the global ecosystem and is likely to become increasingly important as this phenomenon intensifies. Numerous studies in climate change impacts on biodiversity, ecosystems, and ecosystem services in China have been published in recent decades. However, a comprehensive review of the topic is needed to provide an improved understanding of the history and driving mechanisms of environmental changes within the region. Here we review the evidence for changes in climate and the peer-reviewed literature that assesses climate change impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem, and ecosystem services at a China scale. Our main conclusions are as follows. (1) Most of the evidence shows that climate change (the increasing extreme events) is affecting the change of productivity, species interactions, and biological invasions, especially in the agro-pastoral transition zone and fragile ecological area in Northern China. (2) The individuals and populations respond to climate change through changes in behavior, functions, and geographic scope. (3) The impact of climate change on most types of services (provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural) in China is mainly negative and brings threats and challenges to human well-being and natural resource management, therefore, requiring costly societal adjustments. In general, although great progress has been made, the management strategies still need to be further improved. Integrating climate change into ecosystem services assessment and natural resource management is still a major challenge. Moving forward, it is necessary to evaluate and research the effectiveness of typical demonstration cases, which will contribute to better scientific management of natural resources in China and the world.
Highlights
Biodiversity and ecosystems as natural capital provide services such as provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural for human society, and assets play fundamental roles in supporting human well-being [1]
We searched a total of 18,323 studies on ecosystems in China; 4258 studies on ecosystem services in China
From 1990 to 2019, the volume of literature on ecosystems and ecosystem services shows an increasing trend (Figure 1A,C), which indicates that people are paying more and more attention to the impact of climate change on ecosystem and ecosystem services (Figure 1B,D)
Summary
Biodiversity and ecosystems as natural capital provide services such as provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural for human society, and assets play fundamental roles in supporting human well-being [1]. Climate change poses widespread and increasingly serious global threats to biodiversity and ecosystems [2]. The sixth assessment report of the United Nations Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) clearly pointed out that from the prediction of average temperature change in the 20 years, the global temperature rise is expected to reach or exceed 1.5 °C; at least until the middle of this century, the global surface temperature will continue to rise [3]. The National Assessment Report on Climate Change (III) pointed out that the average temperature of China’s land has increased by 0.9–1.5 ◦ C in the past 100 years (1909–2011) The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events (such as droughts, heatwaves, and heavy rainfall) will affect 25–40% of the global ecosystem structure and function [4,5], and further affect the supply level of ecosystem services and the human well-being [6].
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