CLIMED

Climate change effects on Mediterranean biodiversity and its consequences for ecosystem functioning


Summary

Climate change is expected to affect biodiversity, the functioning of ecosystems, and their services generated for the human society. Predicting these impacts requires an understanding of which organisms are susceptible and why, and what is their part in ecosystem processes. This project contributes to this understanding (i) by linking predicted climate change to biodiversity change across trophic levels, and (ii) by quantifying direct and indirect biodiversity-driven effects of climate change on ecosystem processes related to carbon and nutrient cycling in Mediterranean ecosystems. Complementary experiments in the field and in the Montpellier ECOTRON, a new and powerful tool for climate change studies, are planned. Climate change is the predicted major threat to Mediterranean biodiversity. A large rain exclusion experiment in the field takes advantage of the unique situation of naturally established garrigue vegetation across a fully factorial gradient of plant species diversity. This allows for the first time to evaluate the interactive effects of woody plant species diversity and soil biodiversity on ecosystem processes under future climate change scenarios. By taking an explicit functional approach to biodiversity and by focussing on interactions among plants, soil fauna, and microorganisms, this project will contribute to develop predictive tools for climate change effects on biodiversity and its consequences for ecosystem carbon sequestration, ecosystem productivity and soil fertility. The functional trait-based characterization of biodiversity may provide a synthetic and applicable tool for the assessment of biodiversity and the prediction of rates of ecosystem processes under future climate conditions, and lays the ground for data-based risk assessments for Mediterranean ecosystems.

INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION REPORT