Climate Change in Relation to Species Spacial Distribution

This topic submitted by Brad Shumaker, Chelsea Nagy ( shumakbt@muohio.edu, Nagyrc@muohio.edu ) on 1/28/04 .

Global Climate Change -Western Program-Miami University

1. Research Questions:

What different effects does global climate change have in reference to land and water?
what are the different effects of global climate change on plants and animals?
How do changes in species distrbution effect humans?

2. Specific Predictions:

We predict that Oceans will be less effected do to there size and capacity to maintain environmental constants.

Plants are being adversly effected in a greater way than animals because they lack mobility.

We predict that with an expanding spacial distribution of insects, the spread of disease will be a negative impacts on humans. Species desirable for human consumption may change do to plummeting populations of some species and rising populations of others. Plants used for medicinal purposes as well as consumption may change or vary much like the animals.

3. Preliminary Research Design:

We plan on gathering and collaborating already established information. From our found information we are going to make our own conclusions, putting our own spin on the issue. We are also going to try and gather as much hard data as possible creating our own graphs and then making other conclusions off the trends seen in the graphs and tables.

4. Library References

5. Web References

1) http://www.bto.org/bbs/research/spacial_variation.htm
Breeding Bird Survey tracks bird populations and abundance. The site shows how they gather data, how they map data, and predicts what change might mean. One good example of species change.

2) http://www.biology.duke.edu/bio217/gm14/
This site gives an overview and explanation of the effects of global warming on plankton and other potential effects on marine mammals.

3) http://www.nrel.colostate.edu/brd_global_change/proj_15_migbirds.html
This site gives research and explanation of climate change and impact on migratory bird distribution. USGS is a reliable organization.

4) http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/biodiversity/monarch_phase1.html
Discusses speices distribution change relative to climate change. Discusses methodology and sites specific examples.

5) http://www.wsl.ch/land/dynamics/modeling/Trisk.html
Gives examples and maps of spacial distribution change for vegetation do to global warming and gives projections of future changes if global warming continues.

6. PDF References

1) http://www.terrapub.co.jp/e-library/toyota/pdf/415.pdf
This source gives a detailed description of a project that has been conducted and its findings. It's an analysis of an area of forest and a model that follows impact of global warming on different species. The project focusses on several specific topics relevant to our project.

2) http://gisweb.ciat.cgiar.org/sig/download/biological_mapping/Predicting_the%20Impact_of_Climate_Change.pdf
This source discusses the disperal of certain species of wild peanut and how global climate change has effected their density and distribution. It's a colorful and graph filled source, and is relevant to our topic.

3) http://www.iemss.org/iemss2002/proceedings/pdf/volume%20due/76_loukos.pdf
Source discusses global warming and the ocean. Specifically the reduction of primary production that is happening and its direct effect on tuna populations.

4) http://www.werc.usgs.gov/sngc/presentations/Diaz.pdf
Source discusses the connection between regional impacts and global change. It specifically focusses on the western United States and of high elevation ecosystems.

5) http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/nationalassessment/forests/bioone5.pdf
This source discusses the effects on species from both climate change and land use. It's specifically focussed on forests and the species within that ecosystem. Relevand to our topic and adds a more human impact outlook on the subject.

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