Global Atmospheric Change involves changes in multiple edaphic factors.  Modles predicting the future generally lack realistic testing.  The inherent dangers will be illustrated from field scale elevated CO2 experiments (FACE) which revieal key unexpected effects on insect herbivory, temperature tolerance, plant development and crop nutrition, with profound implications for understanding our future.

In the Scandinavian willow warbler we found a genetic marker whose allele frequency patterns reflect local adaptation to temperature conditions and short growing season in the mountains. Our results suggest that climate exerts direct selection on the genomic region associated with this allele, making it suitable for monitoring climate change as a force of selection on bird populations.

Sediment cores from Lake Bosumtwi (Ghana) provide a record of West African climate change over the last 500,000 yrs, capturing four glacial-interglacial cycles. Pollen assemblages reveal interglacial periods dominated by woodland and glacials by savannah. Vegetation shows a positive relationship with the 100,000 yr eccentricity and the 41,000 yr obliquity cycle interpreted to result from changes in glacial boundary conditions.

The impacts of selection logging on forest carbon budgets will be increasingly important as atmospheric carbon levels continue to rise. For this study we monitored above-ground carbon pools and fluxes across 8 ha of intact and logged forests on the mid-Atlantic coastal plain. This presentation will report the preliminary results for standing biomass, CWD, litter-fall, soil respiration, and ingrowth. 

Carbon uptake of regrowth forests is of the central importance in efforts to combat climate change.  A study was conducted to measure carbon stocks in subtropical forests including primary, secondary and plantation and estimate the impact of different anthropogenic disturbances on carbon stocks in the forest of Gutianshan, Eastern China.

Management strategies and predictions of species’ distributions typically assume constant responses to environmental variables, but climate could drive changes in species’ habitat associations. We studied the microhabitats selected for egg-laying by 16 different populations of the silver-spotted skipper butterfly (Hesperia comma). Eggs were associated with cooler microhabitats in warmer sites, demonstrating a climate-driven functional response in habitat associations.  

Temperature sensitive seasonal events are likely to change not only in their mean date of occurence, but also in their variance.  Where two species are interacting it is therefore possible that they may become ecologically mismatched due to a narrowing of resource availability.  Here I will demonstrate the importance of recording and modelling whole phenological distributions in climate change studies.

Two of the mechanisms affecting coastal marine ecosystems under climate change are declining body sizes of predators (a top-down force) and increasing nutrient enrichment (a bottom-up force). We manipulated both in a field experiment investigating the combined effects on the species community. Many elements of the community are affected by one or both forces, including a body-mass induced trophic cascade.

The effects of climate change are starting to show across a wide range of organisms and habitats and are expected to increase in future.  Climate Change Impacts Report Cards are being developed under the LWEC programme to develop and communicate an integrated assessment of these impacts in the UK, representing the consensus of the research community.

A long-term experiment has been used to explore the effects of 20 years of simulated climate change on the gross primary productivity (GPP) of limestone grasslands in the UK. Preliminary results show a 10% reduction on the GPP on the drought treatment. The main drivers of this variation are examined.

The Arctic is the bellwether of global change and an important reserve of uniquely adapted biodiversity and biogeochemistry. Research examines the long-term acclimation of carbon dynamics in arctic heath exposed to elevated CO2 concentrations for 20 years. Here we present greenhouse gas emissions from the experiment and discuss implications for plant-soil C dynamics.

Extreme drought stress has changed the competitive interactions of trees in a mixed species woodland, through non-linear threshold processes. Differential mortality altered species abundance, alongside the long term failure (1976-2009) of the dominant species to recover to pre-drought growth levels. A co-dominant competitor species benefited from the relaxation of competition.

We present evidence that coexisting grassland plant populations have made genetic adjustments in phenotype in response to 17 years of simulated summer drought. In some cases, these responses to climatic selection were modified by fine-scale edaphic heterogeneity present within the grassland. Our results suggest that genetic responses contribute to the observed resistance of this grassland to simulated climate change.

Increasing temperature and acidification are major climatic stressors on freshwater ecosystems, which can have potentially severe consequences for community structure and food web dynamics.  We used multiple combinations of species from a well-characterised aquatic food web to characterise how predator-prey functional responses might respond to future warming and pH change.

Decomposer fungus and soil invertebrate responses to climate change are mediated by their interactions. Grazing invertebrates can counteract climate-induced stimulation of fungal growth, while shifts in the microbial resource base influence grazer population dynamics. This study furthers mechanistic understanding of these interactions and their influence soil enzyme activity and decomposition.