Peer Reviewed Articles for Senior Project

The first link I found was a particularly interesting one discussing climate change's future effects on marine life, especially many oceanic species. In it they show a large chart showing the species of fish, the environment and specific location it lives in, the time period of the study, and the changes in population levels throughout the time period. Some of the future results are also calculated using calculus, these results being the rate of production within the species. They also showed projected studies of specific species in three different theoretical locations/global environments, one having a high, low, and middle ground level of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere above it.
The main point that I got out of this relating to the changes in biodiversity was that the climate change mostly incurs large influxes in species invasion, causing mass extinction of many species caught off guard by the new, often inexperienced species. The largest points of extinction are located in the tropical and equatorial regions of our planet.
Honestly a lot of the information is over my head at first glance, but after looking at it for a while and taking it in it starts to make more and more sense. The reason for this is because of the large prevalence of math involved in predicting future outcomes, and the complexity of their experiment and how that made the math even more elaborate.

Cheung, William W.L., Vicky W.Y. Lam, Jorge L. Sarmiento, Kelly Kearney, Reg Watson, and Daniel Pauly. "Climate Change Impact on Marine Biodiversity." Projecting global marine biodiversity impacts under climate change scenarios. seaaroundus.org, 5 Nov. 2008. Web. 24 Feb. 2010. www.seaaroundus.org/ClimateChange/images/Cheung-climate-biodiversity-FF-2009.pdf.

"Particularly, climate change impacts on marine biodiversity are likely to intensify in the future, with the intensity of impacts differing geographically according to changes in ocean conditions and sensitivity of the species (Roessig et al. 2004; Harley et al. 2006; Munday et al. 2008)."

"The A1B scenario describes a world of very rapid economic growth, low population growth, rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies, and moderate use of resources with a balanced use of technologies." (This scenario was of the high CO2 concentration. This, along with the other two descriptors, show the various projected climates they did their math using, not being a part of the result of the study.)

"...invasion to and extinction from an area (collectively called species turnover) can affect biodiversity, community structure and ecosystem functions"

"The pattern of species turnover was generally dominated by species invasion. On the other hand, although the relative rate of species turnover decreases towards the equator, the absolute number of species turning over is high in the tropics"

"The interactions between geography and species’ dispersal patterns strongly affected our predicted climate impact on marine biodiversity. In semienclosed seas, the dispersal of many species was limited by land boundaries. In addition, sea bottom temperature and SST of semi-enclosed seas were projected to increase at a faster rate than temperatures in the adjacent open seas, causing more local extinctions and range-shifting in these semienclosed water bodies."

This next link is very similar to the previous one, except it measured biodiversity levels in Europe. The way they did it was also very similar, using the same variables multiple times but changing the levels for each time the equations are ran and taking the average of the various equations. This one goes really in depth with graphs and charts, showing the various levels of different insect life over time and other things.

Dormann, Carsten F., Oliver Schweiger, and many others. "Ecology Letters: Biodiversity prediction uncertainty." Prediction uncertainty of environmental change effects on temperate European biodiversity. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2010. https://www.ufz.de/data/d-Dormann_2008_EcologyLett8108.pdf.

Nate Lewis Presentation Reflection

I loved the presentation that we watched because in it, he pulled together so many things that I have thought about previously, but he pulled it all together in a way that made everything realistic. I say this because when I think of things, I think of ways to make things work. One example of this is the whole plants and why they aren't black in order to attract more light from the sun. Nate Lewis touched on this towards the end when he was talking about biomass and how we need to create some sort of fast growing biofuel that could support us forever.
I also loved the way he brought up the giant solar panel. Obviously he was being sarcastic with it, but if we did start putting up solar panels, he already figured out the math that shows how many solar panels of what size we need to fuel the nation. I do agree that we need to use solar, but in our current economic situation we cannot afford it.

Further Research on my Topic

Source One
"Ecosystems and Biodiversity | Climate Change - Health and Environmental Effects | U.S. EPA." U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. N.p., 8 Sept. 2009. Web. 9 Feb. 2010. http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/eco.html

This article discusses some findings regarding climate change, life's need for the right climate, and how sudden change could be good or bad. It also talks about how future projections on ecosystem loss are not likely to come out accurate because of the quick rate of change giving no precursor or anything to go off of.

Some Quotes:
"Climate is an integral part of ecosystems and organisms have adapted to their regional climate over time. Climate change is a factor that has the potential to alter ecosystems and the many resources and services they provide to each other and to society."
"20 percent to 30 percent of species assessed may be at risk of extinction from climate change impacts within this century if global mean temperatures exceed 2-3 °C (3.6-5.4 °F) relative to pre-industrial levels"

Source Two
" About Climate Change and Biological Diversity." Convention on Biological Diversity. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2010. http://www.cbd.int/climate/about.shtml

This article presents the subject of climate, ecosystems, and biodiversity, presents a problem and why it matters, then finishes it off with things that we need to keep in mind when creating a plan to fix the issue at hand.

Some Quotes:
"According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group I (WGI) Fourth Assessment Report, from 1850 to 2005, the average global temperature increased by about 0.76ºC and global mean sea level rose by 12 to 22 cm during the last century."
"The present global biota has been affected by fluctuating Pleistocene (last 1.8 million years) concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, temperature, and precipitation, and has coped through evolutionary changes, species plasticity, range movements, and/or the ability to survive in small patches of favourable habitat (refugia)."
"Habitat fragmentation has confined many species to relatively small areas within their previous ranges, resulting in reduced genetic variability. Warming beyond the ceiling of temperatures reached during the Pleistocene will stress ecosystems and their biodiversity far beyond the levels imposed by the global climatic change that occurred in the recent evolutionary past. "

Source Three
Science Daily. "Global Impact Of Climate Change On Biodiversity." Science Daily: News & Articles in Science, Health, Environment & Technology. N.p., 22 Jan. 2009. Web. 11 Feb. 2010. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090121091239.htm

This article goes over a survey proving that creatures have already been slowly migrating over the years due to the climate change, and how many others have no where to go. It provides a lot of solid evidence and explains it better than the previous two.


Reflection:
I feel these sources are somewhat reliable. The last one is very good because it shows one study taken over 40 years, showing plenty of progress. The first two are more summations of the issue as a whole. Other than the sources, I feel that I am really driven to do this subject. I love biology, and I am very interested in the process of cloning endangered animals in order to rapidly repopulate the many ecosystems. The whole climate change thing really does effect the biodiversity levels because the more climates change, the more the animals have to change, and sometimes there isn't any room for them to go, leaving them for dead.