The search for winners and losers in a sea of climate change

摘要

Evidence for a progressive effect of human activity on global climates is now incontrovertible (IPCC 2007). Less certain, however, are the long-term impacts of changing climates on different species and ecosystems (Hockey & Midgley 2009). There are likely to be winners as well as losers, but telling them apart is fraught with difficulties, perhaps especially so in marine ecosystems because of their (i) complex and ever-shifting interactions between physical and biological oceanography, (ii) local- vs. regional-scale processes and (iii) bottom-up vs. top-down control of species' distributions and abundance (Frederiksen et al. 2007a). Two papers in this issue of Ibis throw new light on which species or populations of marine birds may suffer or benefit from the impacts of climate change. D'Alba et al. (2010) show a lagged increase in the breeding population of Common Eiders Somateria mollissima following warmer summers in southwest Iceland, probably driven by higher survival and subsequent recruitment of offspring, whilst Rivalan et al. (2010) reveal an increase in adult survival of Amsterdam Albatrosses Diomedia amsterdamensis, associated with changes in wind patterns and sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean. The latter findings are particularly important given the status of this species as the world's rarest albatross.