Global Warming And Ecosystems

Timetable

Monday, 9:45-11:15 (room 242)

Module aim (aims)

• Explanation causes and indicators of natural and human-induced climate changes• Revealing diverse impact of global warming on different types of ecosystems• Presentation responses of various organisms to global warming • Explanation societal challenges considering global to local environmental protection issues connected with the recent climate warming• Presentation different types of modern research including global change experiments to understand the future response of various ecosystems to climate change with a special focus on global warming• Presentation response of functional diversity of various ecosystems• Explanation past natural and anthropogenic greenhouse gasses (GHG) emissions and predictions for the future

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

Basic knowledge considering ecology and climatology

Syllabus

Recent centuries brought big scale changes for ecosystems related to human activity. The most striking example is global warming which became one of the most discussed issues linked to human impact on the Earth. In this course, we would like to present the causes and effects of global warming and other climatic phenomena related to this warming and compare it with naturally forced climate changes in the past. The linkage to the history of relationships between climate and ecosystems will be an important platform to explain the influence of modern global climate changes on the Earth’s ecosystems from a single organism to the biomes. The practical part of our course will be the visit to sites where field experiments considered the influence of the projected future warming on peatlands of the temperate zone. The students will have unique opportunity to see field experimental sites, with sophisticated equipment, in protected peatland areas.

Reading list

Vitousek, P.M., 1994. Beyond global warming: ecology and global change. Ecology 75, 1861-1876.Hughes, L., 2000. Biological consequences of global warming: is the signal already apparent? Trends in Ecology & Evolution 15, 56-61.Shaver, G.R., Canadell, J., Chapin, F.S., Gurevitch, J., Harte, J., Henry, G., Ineson, P., Jonasson, S., Melillo, J., Pitelka, L., Rustad, L., 2000. Global Warming and Terrestrial Ecosystems: A Conceptual Framework for Analysis. BioScience 50, 871-882.Bradley, R.S., Briffa, K.R., Cole, J.E., Hughes, M.K., Osborn, T.J., 2003. The Climate of the Last Millennium, in: Alverson, K., Bradley, R., Pedersen, T. (Eds.), Paleoclimate, global change, and the future. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, pp. 105-142.Bardgett, R.D., 2005. The biology of soil: a community and ecosystem approach. Oxford University Press.Bardgett, R.D., Wardle, D.A., 2010. Aboveground–belowground linkages biotic interactions, ecosystem processes, and global Change.Grimm, N.B., Faeth, S.H., Golubiewski, N.E., Redman, C.L., Wu, J., Bai, X., Briggs, J.M., 2008. Global Change and the Ecology of Cities. Science 319.Aronson, E.L., McNulty, S.G., 2009. Appropriate experimental ecosystem warming methods by ecosystem, objective, and practicality. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 149, 1791-1799.Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Smith, A., Barry, T.L., Coe, A.L., Bown, P.R., Brenchley, P., Cantrill, D., Gale, A., Gibbard, P., Gregory, F.J., Hounslow, M.W., Kerr, A.C., Pearson, P., Knox, R., Powell, J., Waters, C., Marshall, J., Oates, M., Rawson, P., Stone, P., 2008. Are we now living in the Anthropocene. GSA Today 18, 4.McMahon, S.M., Harrison, S.P., Armbruster, W.S., Bartlein, P.J., Beale, C.M., Edwards, M.E., Kattge, J., Midgley, G., Morin, X., Prentice, I.C., 2011. Improving assessment and modelling of climate change impacts on global terrestrial biodiversity. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 26, 249-259.