Abstract
Anticipating the effects of climate change on biodiversity is now critical for managing wild species and ecosystems. Climate change is a global driver and thus affects biodiversity globally. However, land-use planners and natural resource managers need regional or even local predictions. This provides scientists with formidable challenges given the poor documentation of biodiversity and its complex relationships with climate. We are approaching this problem in Quebec, Canada, through the CC-Bio Project (http://cc‑bio.uqar.ca/), using a boundary organization as a catalyst for team work involving climate modelers, biologists, naturalists, and biodiversity managers. In this paper we present the CC-Bio Project and its general approach, some preliminary results, the emerging hypothesis of the northern biodiversity paradox (a potential increase of biodiversity in northern ecosystems due to climate change), and an early assessment of the conservation implications generated by our team work.
Highlights
Species can respond to climate change in several ways
In Quebec, the first forum where information can be coproduced and shared by various players with an interest in biodiversity and ecosystems has been established through the CC-Bio Project, with the help of a boundary organization
A research approach and sources of data have been identified, preliminary results are being produced, first directions for adaptive strategies have been proposed, and training of a new generation of biologists increasingly informed of climate change issues has started
Summary
Species can respond to climate change in several ways. They can move to track climatic conditions or stay in place and evolve to the new climate. Biodiversity conservation largely rests on two complementary approaches that involve (1) identifying species at risk and taking actions to decrease extinction risks, and (2) protecting and restoring areas which represent the diversity of ecosystems. Implementing both approaches depends on knowing the distribution and abundance of species, and on estimating how these will change over time. The general objective of CC-Bio is to project potential effects of climate change on the distribution and abundance of a large range of Quebec’s plant and animal species, in order to develop knowledge and tools needed to implement regional strategies of adaptation to climate change in the field of biodiversity conservation. In south-western Quebec, where CC-Bio takes place, average surface temperatures have increased by 1.25 oC in the last 4 decades [26,27], and climatic models project a further 3–5 oC increase during the present century [28]
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