Climate change impacts on biodiversity are already being observed in alteration of the timing of critical biological events such as spring bud burst, and substantial range shifts of many species. In the longer term, there is an increased risk of species extinction. These changes have social, cultural, and economic effects. Events such as droughts, floods, wildfires, and pest outbreaks associated with climate change (for example, bark beetles in the West) are already disrupting ecosystems. These changes limit the capacity of ecosystems, such as forests, barrier beaches, and wetlands, to continue to play important roles in reducing the impacts of extreme events on infrastructure, human communities, and other valued resources.

In addition to direct impacts on ecosystems, societal choices about land use and agricultural practices affect the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, and other elements, which also influence climate. These choices can affect, positively or negatively, the rate and magnitude of climate change and the vulnerabilities of human and natural systems.

Key Message: Water

Climate change impacts on ecosystems reduce their ability to improve water quality and regulate water flows.

Key Message: Extreme Events

Climate change, combined with other stressors, is overwhelming the capacity of ecosystems to buffer the impacts from extreme events like fires, floods, and storms.

Key Message: Plants and Animals

Landscapes and seascapes are changing rapidly, and species, including many iconic species, may disappear from regions where they have been prevalent or become extinct, altering some regions so much that their mix of plant and animal life will become almost unrecognizable.

Key Message: Seasonal Patterns

Timing of critical biological events, such as spring bud burst, emergence from overwintering, and the start of migrations, has shifted, leading to important impacts on species and habitats.

Key Message: Adaptation

Whole system management is often more effective than focusing on one species at a time, and can help reduce the harm to wildlife, natural assets, and human well-being that climate disruption might cause.

Ecosystems

Climate change affects the living world, including people, through changes in ecosystems, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. Ecosystems entail all the living things in a particular area as well as the non-living things with which they interact, such as air, soil, water, and sunlight. Biodiversity refers to the variety of life, including the number of species, life forms, genetic types, and habitats and biomes (which are characteristic groupings of plant and animal species found in a particular climate). Biodiversity and ecosystems produce a rich array of benefits that people depend on, including fisheries, drinking water, fertile soils for growing crops, climate regulation, inspiration, and aesthetic and cultural values.² These benefits are called “ecosystem services” – some of which, like food, are more easily quantified than others, such as climate regulation or cultural values. Changes in many such services are often not obvious to those who depend on them.

Forests absorb carbon dioxide and provide many other ecosystem services, such as purifying water and providing recreational opportunities.

©Michele Westmorland/Corbis

Ecosystem services contribute to jobs, economic growth, health, and human well-being. Although we interact with ecosystems and ecosystem services every day, their linkage to climate change can be elusive because they are influenced by so many additional entangled factors.³ Ecosystem perturbations driven by climate change have direct human impacts, including reduced water supply and quality, the loss of iconic species and landscapes, distorted rhythms of nature, and the potential for extreme events to overwhelm the regulating services of ecosystems.

Even with these well-documented ecosystem impacts, it is often difficult to quantify human vulnerability that results from shifts in ecosystem processes and services. For example, although it is relatively straightforward to predict how precipitation will change water flow, it is much harder to pinpoint which farms, cities, and habitats will be at risk of running out of water, and even more difficult to say how people will be affected by the loss of a favorite fishing spot or a wildflower that no longer blooms in the region. A better understanding of how a range of ecosystem responses affects people – from altered water flows to the loss of wildflowers – will help to inform the management of ecosystems in a way that promotes resilience to climate change.

Major North American Carbon Dioxide Sources and Sinks

The release of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning in North America (shown here for 2010) vastly exceeds the amount that is taken up and temporarily stored in forests, crops, and other ecosystems (shown here is the annual average for 2000-2006). (Figure source: King et al. 2012¹).

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Ecosystems also represent potential “sinks” for CO₂, which are places where carbon can be stored over the short or long term. At the continental scale, there has been a large and relatively consistent increase in forest carbon stocks over the last two decades,³ due to recovery from past forest harvest, net increases in forest area, improved forest management regimes, and faster growth driven by climate or fertilization by CO₂ and nitrogen.¹^,⁴ Emissions of CO₂ from human activities in the United States continue to exceed ecosystem CO₂ uptake by more than three times. As a result, North America remains a net source of CO₂ into the atmosphere¹ by a substantial margin.

Key Message: Increasing Forest Disturbances

Climate change is increasing the vulnerability of many forests to ecosystem changes and tree mortality through fire, insect infestations, drought, and disease outbreaks.

Key Message: Changing Carbon Uptake

U.S. forests and associated wood products currently absorb and store the equivalent of about 16% of all carbon dioxide (CO₂) emitted by fossil fuel burning in the U.S. each year. Climate change, combined with current societal trends in land use and forest management, is projected to reduce this rate of forest CO₂ uptake.

Key Message: Bioenergy Potential

Bioenergy could emerge as a new market for wood and could aid in the restoration of forests killed by drought, insects, and fire.

Key Message: Influences on Management Choices

Forest management responses to climate change will be influenced by the changing nature of private forestland ownership, globalization of forestry markets, emerging markets for bioenergy, and U.S. climate change policy.

Forests

Forests occur within urban areas, at the interface between urban and rural areas (wildland-urban interface), and in rural areas. Urban forests contribute to clean air, cooling buildings, aesthetics, and recreation in parks. Development in the wildland-urban interface is increasing because of the appeal of owning homes near or in the woods. In rural areas, market factors drive land uses among commercial forestry and land uses such as agriculture. Across this spectrum, forests provide recreational opportunities, cultural resources, and social values such as aesthetics.⁶

Climate change is increasing vulnerability to wildfires across the western U. S. and Alaska.

©Daryl Pederson/AlaskaStock/Corbis

Economic factors have historically influenced both the overall area and use of private forestland. Private entities own 56% of U.S. forestlands while 44% of forests are on public lands.⁷ Market factors can influence management objectives for public lands, but societal values also influence objectives by identifying benefits such as environmental services not ordinarily provided through markets, like watershed protection and wildlife habitat. Different challenges and opportunities exist for public and for private forest management decisions, especially when climate-related issues are considered on a national scale. For example, public forests typically carry higher levels of forest biomass, are more remote, and tend not to be as intensively managed as private forestlands.⁶

Forest Growth Provides an Important Carbon Sink

Forests provide the important ecosystem service of absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it. Forests are the largest component of the U.S. carbon sink, but growth rates of forests vary widely across the country. Well-watered forests of the Pacific Coast and Southeast absorb considerably more than the arid Southwestern forests or the colder Northeastern forests. Climate change and disturbance rates, combined with current societal trends regarding land use and forest management, are projected to reduce forest CO₂ uptake in the coming decades. Figure shows forest growth as measured by net primary production in tons of carbon per hectare per year, and are averages from 2000 to 2006 (Figure source: adapted from Running et al. 2004⁵).

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Forests provide opportunities to reduce future climate change by capturing and storing carbon, as well as by providing resources for bioenergy production (the use of forest-derived plant-based materials for energy production). The total amount of carbon stored in U.S. forest ecosystems and wood products (such as lumber and pulpwood) equals roughly 25 years of U.S. heat-trapping gas emissions at current rates of emission, providing an important national “sink” that could grow or shrink depending on the extent of climate change, forest management practices, policy decisions, and other factors.⁸^,⁹

Forest Disturbance

A Montana saw mill owner inspects a lodgepole pine covered in pitch tubes that show the tree trying, unsuccessfully, to defend itself against the bark beetle. The bark beetle is killing lodgepole pines throughout the western United States.

©Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty

Factors affecting tree death, such as drought, physiological water stress, higher temperatures, and/or pests and pathogens, are often interrelated, which means that isolating a single cause of mortality is rare.¹⁰^,¹¹^,¹² However, in western forests there have been recent large scale die-off events due to one or more of these factors,¹³^,¹⁴^,¹⁵ and rates of tree mortality are well correlated with both rising temperatures and associated increases in evaporative water demand.¹⁶

Warmer winters allow more insects to survive the cold season, and a longer summer allows some insects to complete two life cycles in a year instead of one. Drought stress reduces trees’ ability to defend against boring insects. Above, beetle-killed trees in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

©Pete McBride/National Geographic Society

Fire is another important forest disturbance. Given strong relationships between climate and fire, even when modified by land use and management, such as fuel treatments, projected climate changes suggest that western forests in the U.S. will be increasingly affected by large and intense fires that occur more frequently..¹⁵^,¹⁷^,¹⁸^,¹⁹^,²⁰^,²¹

Key Message: Effects on Communities and Ecosystems

Choices about land-use and land-cover patterns have affected and will continue to affect how vulnerable or resilient human communities and ecosystems are to the effects of climate change.

Key Message: Effects on Climate Processes

Land-use and land-cover changes affect local, regional, and global climate processes.

Key Message: Adapting to Climate Change

Individuals, businesses, non-profits, and governments have the capacity to make land-use decisions to adapt to the effects of climate change.

Key Message: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Levels

Choices about land use and land management may provide a means of reducing atmospheric greenhouse gas levels.

Land Use and Land Cover Change

Land-use and land-cover changes affect climate processes: Above, development along Colorado’s Front Range.

©Ted Wood Photography

In addition to emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases from energy, industrial, agricultural, and other activities, humans affect climate through changes in land use (activities taking place on land, like growing food, cutting trees, or building cities) and land cover (the physical characteristics of the land surface, including grain crops, trees, or concrete). For example, cities are warmer than the surrounding countryside because the greater extent of paved areas in cities affects how water and energy are exchanged between the land and the atmosphere, and how exposed the population is to extreme heat events. Decisions about land use and land cover can therefore affect, positively or negatively, how much our climate will change, and what kind of vulnerabilities humans and natural systems will face as a result.

Building Loss by Fires at California Wildland-Urban Interfaces

Many forested areas in the U.S. have experienced a recent building boom in what is known as the “wildland-urban interface.” This figure shows the number of buildings lost from the 25 most destructive wildland-urban interface fires in California history from 1960 to 2007 (Figure source: Stephens et al. 2009²²).

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Construction near forests and wildlands is growing. Here, wildfire approaches a housing development.

©Elmer Frederick Fischer/Corbis

The combination of residential location choices with wildfire occurrence dramatically illustrates how the interactions between land use and climate processes can affect climate change impacts and vulnerabilities. Low-density (suburban and exurban) housing patterns in the U.S. have expanded, and are projected to continue to expand.²³ One result is a rise in the amount of construction in forests and other wildlands²⁴^,²⁵ that in turn has increased the exposure of houses, other structures, and people to damages from wildfires. The number of buildings lost in the 25 most destructive fires in California history increased significantly in the 1990s and 2000s compared to the previous three decades, as shown in the figure.²² These losses are one example of how changing development patterns can interact with a changing climate to create dramatic new risks. In the western U.S., increasing frequencies of large wildfires and longer wildfire durations are strongly associated with increased spring and summer temperatures and an earlier spring snowmelt.²⁶

Key Message: Human-Induced Changes

Human activities have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide by about 40% over pre-industrial levels and more than doubled the amount of nitrogen available to ecosystems. Similar trends have been observed for phosphorus and other elements, and these changes have major consequences for biogeochemical cycles and climate change.

Key Message: Sinks and Cycles

In total, land in the United States absorbs and stores an amount of carbon equivalent to about 17% of annual U.S. fossil fuel emissions. U.S. forests and associated wood products account for most of this land sink. The effect of this carbon storage is to partially offset warming from emissions of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases.

Key Message: Impacts and Options

Altered biogeochemical cycles together with climate change increase the vulnerability of biodiversity, food security, human health, and water quality to changing climate. However, natural and managed shifts in major biogeochemical cycles can help limit rates of climate change.

Biogeochemical Cycles

Biogeochemical cycles involve the fluxes of chemical elements among different parts of the Earth: from living to non-living, from atmosphere to land to sea, and from soils to plants. Human activities have mobilized Earth elements and accelerated their cycles – for example, more than doubling the amount of reactive nitrogen that has been added to the biosphere since pre-industrial times.⁵⁹^,⁶⁰

Many Factors Combine to Affect Biogeochemical Cycles

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Global-scale alterations of biogeochemical cycles are occurring from human activities, both in the U.S. and elsewhere, with impacts and implications now and into the future. Global carbon dioxide emissions are the most significant driver of human-caused climate change. But human-accelerated cycles of other elements, especially nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur, also influence climate. These elements can affect climate directly and indirectly, amplifying or reducing the impacts of climate change. Climate change is having, and will continue to have, impacts on biogeochemical cycles, which will alter future impacts on climate and affect our capacity to cope with coupled changes in climate, biogeochemistry, and other factors.

Species Responses to Climate Change

Biological Responses to Climate Change

Mussel and barnacle beds have declined or disappeared along parts of the Northwest coast due to higher temperatures and drier conditions that have compressed habitable intertidal space.²⁷

Northern flickers arrived at breeding sites earlier in the Northwest in response to temperature changes along migration routes, and egg laying advanced by 1.15 days for every degree increase in temperature, demonstrating that this species has the capacity to adjust their phenology in response to climate change.²⁸

Conifers in many western forests have experienced mortality rates of up to 87% from warming-induced changes in the prevalence of pests and pathogens and stress from drought.¹⁴

Butterflies that have adapted to specific oak species have not been able to colonize new tree species when climate change-induced tree migration changes local forest types, potentially hindering adaptation.²⁹

In response to climate-related habitat change, many small mammal species have altered their elevation ranges, with lower-elevation species expanding their ranges and higher-elevation species contracting their ranges.³⁰

Northern spotted owl populations in Arizona and New Mexico are projected to decline during the next century and are at high risk for extinction due to hotter, drier conditions, while the southern California population is not projected to be sensitive to future climatic changes.³¹

Quaking aspen-dominated systems are experiencing declines in the western U.S. after stress due to climate-induced drought conditions during the last decade.³²

Warmer and drier conditions during the early growing season in high-elevation habitats in Colorado are disrupting the timing of various flowering patterns, with potential impacts on many important plant-pollinator relationships.³³

Population fragmentation of wolverines in the northern Cascades and Rocky Mountains is expected to increase as spring snow cover retreats over the coming century.³⁴

Cutthroat trout populations in the western U.S. are projected to decline by up to 58%, and total trout habitat in the same region is projected to decline by 47%, due to increasing temperatures, seasonal shifts in precipitation, and negative interactions with non-native species.³⁵

Comparisons of historical and recent first flowering dates for 178 plant species from North Dakota showed significant shifts occurred in over 40% of species examined, with the greatest changes observed during the two warmest years of the study.³⁶

Variation in the timing and magnitude of precipitation due to climate change was found to decrease the nutritional quality of grasses, and consequently reduce weight gain of bison in the Konza Prairie in Kansas and the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma.³⁷ Results provide insight into how climate change will affect grazer population dynamics in the future.

13a

Climatic fluctuations were found to influence mate selection and increase the probability of infidelity in birds that are normally socially monogamous, increasing the gene exchange and the likelihood of offspring survival.³⁸

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Migratory birds monitored in Minnesota over a 40-year period showed significantly earlier arrival dates, particularly in short-distance migrants, indicating that some species are capable of responding to increasing winter temperatures better than others.³⁹

Up to 50% turnover in amphibian species is projected in the eastern U.S. by 2100, including the northern leopard frog, which is projected to experience poleward and elevational range shifts in response to climatic changes in the latter quarter of the century.⁴⁰

Studies of black ratsnake (Elaphe obsoleta) populations at different latitudes in Canada, Illinois, and Texas suggest that snake populations, particularly in the northern part of their range, could benefit from rising temperatures if there are no negative impacts on their habitat and prey.⁴¹

Warming-induced hybridization was detected between southern and northern flying squirrels in the Great Lakes region of Ontario, Canada, and in Pennsylvania after a series of warm winters created more overlap in their habitat range, potentially acting to increase population persistence under climate change.⁴²

Some warm-water fishes have moved northwards, and some tropical and subtropical fishes in the northern Gulf of Mexico have increased in temperate ocean habitat.⁴³ Similar shifts and invasions have been documented in Long Island Sound and Narragansett Bay in the Atlantic.⁴⁴

Global marine mammal diversity is projected to decline at lower latitudes and increase at higher latitudes due to changes in temperatures and sea ice, with complete loss of optimal habitat for as many as 11 species by mid-century; seal populations living in tropical and temperate waters are particularly at risk to future declines.⁴⁵

Higher nighttime temperatures and cumulative seasonal rainfalls were correlated with changes in the arrival times of amphibians to wetland breeding sites in South Carolina over a 30-year time period (1978-2008).⁴⁶

Seedling survival of nearly 20 resident and migrant tree species decreased during years of lower rainfall in the Southern Appalachians and the Piedmont areas, indicating that reductions in native species and limited replacement by invading species were likely under climate change.⁴⁷

Widespread declines in body size of resident and migrant birds at a bird-banding station in western Pennsylvania were documented over a 40-year period; body sizes of breeding adults were negatively correlated with mean regional temperatures from the preceding year.⁴⁸

Over the last 130 years (1880-2010), native bees have advanced their spring arrival in the northeastern U.S. by an average of 10 days, primarily due to increased warming. Plants have also showed a trend of earlier blooming, thus helping preserve the synchrony in timing between plants and pollinators.⁴⁹

In the Northwest Atlantic, 24 out of 36 commercially exploited fish stocks showed significant range (latitudinal and depth) shifts between 1968 and 2007 in response to increased sea surface and bottom temperatures.⁵⁰

Increases in maximum, and decreases in the annual variability of, sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean have promoted growth of small phytoplankton and led to a reorganization in the species composition of primary (phytoplankton) and secondary (zooplankton) producers.⁵¹

Changes in female polar bear reproductive success (decreased litter mass and numbers of yearlings) along the north Alaska coast have been linked to changes in body size and/or body condition following years with lower availability of optimal sea ice habitat.⁵²

Water temperature data and observations of migration behaviors over a 34-year time period showed that adult pink salmon migrated earlier into Alaskan creeks, and fry advanced the timing of migration out to sea. Shifts in migration timing may increase the potential for a mismatch in optimal environmental conditions for early life stages, and continued warming trends will likely increase pre-spawning mortality and egg mortality rates.⁵³

Warmer springs in Alaska have caused earlier onset of plant emergence, and decreased spatial variation in growth and availability of forage to breeding caribou. This ultimately reduced calving success in caribou populations.⁵⁴

Many Hawaiian mountain vegetation types were found to vary in their sensitivity to changes in moisture availability; consequently, climate change will likely influence elevation-related vegetation patterns in this region. ⁵⁵

Sea level is predicted to rise by 1.6 to 3.3 feet in Hawaiian waters by 2100, consistent with global projections of 1 to 4 feet of sea level rise (see Ch. 2: Our Changing Climate, Key Message 10). This is projected to increase wave heights, the duration of turbidity, and the amount of re-suspended sediment in the water; consequently, this will create potentially stressful conditions for coral reef communities. ⁵⁶^,⁵⁷^,⁵⁸

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Ecosystems and Biodiversity

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Ecosystems and Biodiversity

Introduction

Key Message: Water

Key Message: Extreme Events

Key Message: Plants and Animals

Key Message: Seasonal Patterns

Key Message: Adaptation

Ecosystems

Major North American Carbon Dioxide Sources and Sinks

Key Message: Increasing Forest Disturbances

Key Message: Changing Carbon Uptake

Key Message: Bioenergy Potential

Key Message: Influences on Management Choices

Forests

Forest Growth Provides an Important Carbon Sink

Forest Disturbance

Key Message: Effects on Communities and Ecosystems

Key Message: Effects on Climate Processes

Key Message: Adapting to Climate Change

Key Message: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Levels

Land Use and Land Cover Change

Building Loss by Fires at California Wildland-Urban Interfaces

Key Message: Human-Induced Changes

Key Message: Sinks and Cycles

Key Message: Impacts and Options

Biogeochemical Cycles

Species Responses to Climate Change

Biological Responses to Climate Change

References