The Potential Impacts of Climate Change on the Biodiversity of Norfolk Jeff Price
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The potential impacts of climate change on the biodiversity of Norfolk Jeff Price Introduction on a trajectory for ~3.2°C increase (UNEP Climate change is posing, and will continue 2016). While this is an improvement over to pose, increasing risks to biodiversity the previous ‘business as usual’ estimate (O’Neill et al. 2017). Changes in phenology of 4°- 4.5°C, it is still likely to have a large and range were first noted more than a impact on biodiversity. decade ago (Root et al. 2003) with many This paper reviews the projected climate publications since. Land use change is change impacts (relative to 1961-1990 increasingly a problem as species are being baseline) on some of the biodiversity further challenged by barriers to their in Norfolk (including birds, mammals, potential dispersal with their preferred reptiles, amphibians, butterflies, common climate across fragmented landscapes macro moths, dragonflies, bumblebees, (Settele et al. 2014). Many studies have grasshoppers, shieldbugs, ferns, orchids, examined the potential future impacts and some trees and shrubs. The paper of climate change on biodiversity using concentrates on the species currently found a variety of modelling techniques. This in Norfolk (largely based on lists on the includes results from Wallace Initiative Norfolk and Norwich Naturalist’s Society Phase 1 models showing the potential for website) and not on potential colonists range losses of greater than 50% across large from Europe. The exception is for some fractions of species globally at warming of the birds and dragonflies. For brevity levels of approximately 3.6 °C above pre- it concentrates on the climate changes industrial levels (Warren et al. 2013). associated with just two potential levels of warming: 2°C (the upper end of the Paris Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Climate Agreement) and 3.2°C (the upper Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) limit of the NDC pledges to date). calls for “…stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at Methods a level that would prevent dangerous The projected changes in biodiversity come anthropogenic interference with the climate from the Wallace Initiative Phase II and III system…within a time frame sufficient which modelled the potential impacts of to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change on nearly 125,000 species of climate change…” (UNFCCC 1992). More terrestrial plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, recently, the Paris Climate Agreement amphibians, and invertebrates. The meth- set a goal of limiting the global average ods used in this study largely follow those temperature increase to “well below 2ºC in Warren et al. 2013 and are summarized above pre-industrial levels”, and ‘pursuing here, along with the modifications made efforts’ to limit it to 1.5ºC, a challenging since 2013. For a more complete review of proposition. However, to date, countries’ the methods, limitations and caveats please individual pledges in terms of emission see the Supplemental Information in War- reductions fall far short of the levels ren et al. (2013). necessary to reach 2°C, much less 1.5°C. If countries actually meet their pledges it is Biodiversity occurrence data were obtained estimated that the global temperature is from the Global Biodiversity Information Trans. Norfolk Norwich Nat. Soc. 2017 50(1) 1 Facility (GBIF; Yesson et al. 2007). GBIF minutes (approximately 20 km x 20 km). facilitates acquisition of data from many The eight bioclimatic variables used in global datasets, including the National the models were the average maximum Biodiversity Network. Thus, some of the temperature of warmest month of the underlying occurrence data used in this year, average minimum temperature of paper may have originally come from the coldest month of the year, annual mean readers of this journal. These data were temperature, temperature seasonality, total then checked and cleaned for locational annual rainfall, rainfall seasonality, rainfall consistency and outliers (Warren et al. of the wettest quarter, and rainfall of the 2013). driest quarter. These variables were selected Climate data comes from the Tyndall after extensive testing showed them to be Climate Change Centre’s Community the best predictive variables for the broadest Integrated Assessment System (CIAS) range of species out of the potential 18 and its component module ClimGEN. In bioclimatic variables. A reduced set of this approach, a simple climate model is variables was used in order to minimize used to project global temperature rise potential issues with autocorrelation and to probabilistically (in order to encompass prevent ‘overfitting’ of the MaxEnt model the key uncertainties in state-of-the-art species distributions. Ten cross-validated global climate change projection) over runs were then performed to assess the the 21st century. Outputs from 21 general MaxEnt model accuracy. The Area under circulation models (GCM) from a model the Receiver Operating Characteristic inter-comparison project (CMIP5, used (AUC) was used to select species models in IPCC AR5; IPCC 2013) provided for projection over all climate scenarios. the pattern of how climate variables Each future climatic range for each species are projected to change regionally for was then projected into the future for each particular levels of global temperature of the 21 climate models at global warming rise. ClimGEN scales these patterns to the levels of 1.5°C to 6°C. amount of warming that is provided by the Lists of species in Norfolk were sourced time series in order to create 21 patterns from the website of the Norfolk and of projected changes corresponding to Norwich Naturalists’ Society http:// differing levels of temperature rise (with norfolknaturalists.org.uk/wp/, specifically accompanying changes in precipitation). the species guides. The list of birds came The global temperature time series used from http://www.norfolkbirds.com/; and in this study were provided by the UK that of common macro moths from https:// Met Office Hadley Centre and used in the www.norfolkmoths.co.uk/macrolist. AVOID2 (Avoiding Dangerous Climate There are many other groups, such as Change) project (Bernie & Lowe 2014). The flowering plants, beetles, micro moths, etc. advantage of using these scenarios is that that could be looked at in future they are internally consistent as to when a papers. Furthermore, in many taxa, given global temperature is reached across especially moths, vagrants and potential climate models, making them more useful immigrants have yet to be examined and for comparing different policy options. some of these may increase with warming. To model the potential impacts on This will be explored in a future paper . individual species, GBIF occurrence data The 50th percentile (averaged across all were combined with the climate data climate models for a given temperature) to develop individual species map of each species on the list was then distribution models using the MaxENT examined to see the degree of potential (Phillips et al. 2006) program at a spatial change (including increasing likelihood of scale of 10 arc 2 Trans. Norfolk Norwich Nat. Soc. 2017 50(1) occurrence) at 2° and 3.2°C. Species not Taiga Bean Goose Anser fabalis listed likely show no change as almost all Pink-footed Goose Anser brachyrhynchus Red-breasted Goose Branta ruficollis Norfolk species had adequate models to Velvet Scoter Melanitta fusca assess potential change. It is important Rough-legged Buzzard Buteo lagopus to understand that a model result is Grey Partridge Perdix perdix not a crystal ball. Potential epigenetic Long-tailed Skua Stercorarius longicaudus or behavioural changes, or persisting Rock Pipit Anthus petrosus Waxwing Bombycilla garrulus microclimatic habitats could allow species Lapland Bunting Calcarius lapponicus to persist for periods of time beyond Snow Bunting Plectrophenax nivalis reaching different temperatures. Similarly, Climate largely or completely unsuitable by for species that are common in Europe 3.2°C: but rare in Norfolk, the English Channel Mandarin Duck Aix galericulata forms a very real barrier to colonization Smew Mergellus albellus owing to dispersal, with many periods of Corncrake Crex crex DotterelCharadrius morinellus colonization and extirpation likely before a European Golden-Plover Pluvialis apricaria species is firmly established. Arctic Tern Sterna paradisaea Razorbill Alca torda Results Dunnock Prunella modularis Reed Bunting Emberiza schoeniclus Birds Mammals Increasing likelihood of occurrence/range Climate largely or completely unsuitable by expansions: Little BitternIxobrychus minutus 2°C: Black-crowned Night Heron Nycticorax nycticorax Common Shrew Sorex araneus Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis Eurasian Water Vole Arvicola amphibius Squacco Heron Ardeola ralloides Roe Deer Capreolus capreolus Purple Heron Ardea pupurea Soprano Pipistrelle Pipistrellus pygmaeus Little Egret Egretta garzetta Nathusius’ Pipistrelle Pipistrellus nathusii Great Egret Ardea alba Brandt’s Bat Myotis brandtii European Spoonbill Platalea leucorodia European Badger Meles meles European Honey Buzzard Pernis apivorus Roe Deer Capreolus capreolus Kite Milvus migrans Climate largely or completely unsuitable by Montagu’s Harrier Circus pygargus 3.2°C: Hobby Falco subbuteo Eurasian Red Squirrel Sciurus vulgaris Little Crake Porzana parva Grey Squirrel Sciurus carolinensis Black-winged Stilt Himantopus himantopus Myotis mystacinus Eurasian Stone-Curlew Burhinus oedicnemus Whiskered Bat Gull-billed Tern Gelochelidon