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Ongoing climate change is a major threat to biodiversity. As abiotic tolerances and dispersal abilities vary, species-specific responses have the potential to further amplify or ameliorate the ensuing impacts on species assemblages. Here, we investigate the effects of climate change on species distributions across non-marine birds, quantifying its projected impact on species richness (SR) as well as on different aspects of phylogenetic diversity globally. Going beyond previous work, we disentangle the potential impacts of species gains versus losses on assemblage-level phylogenetic diversity under climate change and compare the projected impacts to randomized assemblage changes. We show that beyond its effects on SR, climate change could have profound impacts on assemblage-level phylogenetic diversity and composition, which differ significantly from random changes and among regions. Though marked species losses are most frequent in tropical and subtropical areas in our projections, phylogenetic restructuring of species communities is likely to occur all across the globe. Furthermore, our results indicate that the most severe changes to the phylogenetic diversity of local assemblages are likely to be caused by species range shifts and local species gains rather than range reductions and extinctions. Our findings highlight the importance of considering diverse measures in climate impact assessments.

In einer durch Landnutzung und Klimawandel massiv veränderten Welt werden historische Gärten zu potentiellen Refugien für wildlebende Tiere und Pflanzen. Darüber hinaus reagieren zahlreiche Arten bereits auf den Klimawandel, mit verschiedenen Implikationen für die Gärten. Ein besseres Verständnis dieser hier umrissenen komplexen Beziehungen ist dringend notwendig, auch und insbesondere zur besseren Erschließung von Synergiepotentialen im Erhalt des Kultur- wie Naturerbes historischer Gärten. In a world that has experienced massive upheaval triggered by land use and climate change, historic gardens have become potential refuges for wild fauna and flora. Furthermore, numerous species are already reacting to climate change and this has various implications for the gardens. A better understanding of the complex relationships outlined here is urgently needed – also and in particular to foster potential synergies for the conservation of the cultural and natural heritage of historic gardens.

A recent IPCC report emphasized bioenergy with carbon capture storage (BECCS) as a key technology for staying below 1.5°C or 2°C global warming, yet another IPCC report highlights high risks of BECCS in the land domain. Here, we contrast insights from these reports with other recent literature and demonstrate that BECCS bears additional risks for biodiversity, livelihoods, and intertemporal carbon balances. We point out that the majority of scenarios that meet the goalsof the Paris agreements exceed sustainability and precautionary thresholds in land and BECCS potentials. Risks may bebest avoided by demand-side-driven rapid decarbonizationand less land-intensivecarbon dioxide removal technologies.

An ear simulator user guide targeting stakeholders from health policy, clinical audiologists, calibration service providers and equipment manufacturers, has been prepared, covering all of the EMPIR EARSII (15HLT03) research findings to be disseminated. It also contains guidance for using and applying the new ear simulator family including issues for further development of the methodology. The research covered many measurement-related aspects of hearing assessment, that have an impact across a wide range of stakeholders from health service policy makers, and hearing assessment practitioners, to instrumentation manufacturers and calibration service providers. This guidance document has been produced to enable the research findings to be disseminated effectively, key achievements to be summarised and recommendations for further research to be made. The document covers the initial rationale for the project and from the metrology perspective, the improvements in calibration and traceability aimed for. However, it also points to the expected impact on the wider audiometric community, including enhanced service quality for clinicians, new technical drivers for manufacturers of instrumentation, and most importantly greater assurances for patients and their families. There is a description of the proposed new approach to hearing assessment that flows from having ear simulators covering different age points for the first time, and consideration of the continuity issues that may arise from introducing such significant changes. It covers innovations in calibration and in specifying the level of short-duration test stimuli that calibration service providers and the standardisation community alike can adopt and build upon. Importantly it also defines the scope of further audiological research needed to help establish the new ear simulator specifications and see them become embodied in international standards and gain acceptance.

Animal movement is fundamental for ecosystem functioning and species survival, yet the effects of the anthropogenic footprint on animal movements have not been estimated across species. Using a unique GPS-tracking database of 803 individuals across 57 species, we found that movements of mammals in areas with a comparatively high human footprint were on average one-half to one-third the extent of their movements in areas with a low human footprint. We attribute this reduction to behavioral changes of individual animals and to the exclusion of species with long-range movements from areas with higher human impact. Global loss of vagility alters a key ecological trait of animals that affects not only population persistence but also ecosystem processes such as predator-prey interactions, nutrient cycling, and disease transmission.

In Paris, France, December 2015, the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) invited the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide a "special report in 2018 on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways". In Nairobi, Kenya, April 2016, the IPCC panel accepted the invitation. Here we describe the response devised within the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP) to provide tailored, cross-sectorally consistent impact projections to broaden the scientific basis for the report. The simulation protocol is designed to allow for (1) separation of the impacts of historical warming starting from pre-industrial conditions from impacts of other drivers such as historical land-use changes (based on pre-industrial and historical impact model simulations); (2) quantification of the impacts of additional warming up to 1.5 °C, including a potential overshoot and long-term impacts up to 2299, and comparison to higher levels of global mean temperature change (based on the low-emissions Representative Concentration Pathway RCP2.6 and a no-mitigation pathway RCP6.0) with socio-economic conditions fixed at 2005 levels; and (3) assessment of the climate effects based on the same climate scenarios while accounting for simultaneous changes in socio-economic conditions following the middle-of-the-road Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP2, Fricko et al., 2016) and in particular differential bioenergy requirements associated with the transformation of the energy system to comply with RCP2.6 compared to RCP6.0. With the aim of providing the scientific basis for an aggregation of impacts across sectors and analysis of cross-sectoral interactions that may dampen or amplify sectoral impacts, the protocol is designed to facilitate consistent impact projections from a range of impact models across different sectors (global and regional hydrology, lakes, global crops, global vegetation, regional forests, global and regional marine ecosystems and fisheries, global and regional coastal infrastructure, energy supply and demand, temperature-related mortality, and global terrestrial biodiversity).

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Identifying patterns in the effects of temperature on species' population abundances could help develop a general framework for predicting the consequences of climate change across different communities and realms. We used long-term population time series data from terrestrial, freshwater and marine species communities within central Europe to compare the effects of temperature on abundance across a broad range of taxonomic groups. We asked whether there was an average relationship between temperatures in different seasons and annual abundances of species in a community, and whether species attributes (temperature range of distribution, range size, habitat breadth, dispersal ability, body size and lifespan) explained interspecific variation in the relationship between temperature and abundance. We found that, on average, warmer winter temperatures were associated with greater abundances in terrestrial communities (ground beetles, spiders and birds) but not always in aquatic communities (freshwater and marine invertebrates and fish). The abundances of species with large geographical ranges, larger body sizes and longer lifespans tended to be less related to temperature. Our results suggest that climate change may have, in general, positive effects on species’ abundances within many terrestrial communities in central Europe while the effects are less predictable in aquatic communities.