Insects and Climate Change: Processes, Patterns and Implications for Conservation

摘要

The effects of climate change on biodiversity represent one of the most pressing challenges for conservationists in the 21st century. Although the great diversity of life has evolved and survived alongside continual climatic variation, the ability ofbiodiversity to respond to contemporary climate change is much more of an unknown, given the potentially unprecedented rate and magnitude of projected increases in the earth's surface temperature (IPCC, 2001; Root and Schneider, 2002; King, 2005; Lovejoyand Hannah, 2005). In the distant past, at least some of the comparable increases in temperature probably triggered mass extinction events (Hallam and Wignall, 1997; Benton and Twitchett, 2003). Coupled with the fact that many species are now restrictedto very small areas of occupancy because of direct habitat loss and fragmentation caused by human activity (Vitousek et al., 1997; Sanderson et al., 2002; Gaston et al., 2003), the stresses imposed by climate change on habitats, life histories and interactions between species may be such that widespread extinctions are inevitable unless climate change can be arrested or effective conservation measures can be adopted (C.D. Thomas et al., 2004).