Shifting climate as a predictor for change in marine biodiversity at local, regional and global scales

气候变化影响着地球上的每一个人和每一种生物。科学家们普遍认为，世界正在变暖，而人类燃烧煤炭、天然气和石油是主要原因，通过产生温室气体，主要是二氧化碳。 生活在贫困中的人容易受到变化的影响，生活在地球上其地理范围边缘的生物体对温度和其他环境因素的耐受极限也是如此。温度的小幅上升对那些处于舒适区中间的人来说可能意义不大，但对那些已经处于极端极限的动植物来说，这可能意味着生与死的区别。全球和区域温度的小幅变暖将意味着以前太冷的新环境将变得适合居住，从而扩大目前的分布，而在另一端，一些地区将开始经历太热的温度，生物体在该地区死亡。因此，温度变化的模式可以用来显示物种的边界如何随着气候变化而变化。同样，温度可以是许多动物何时繁殖、开始迁徙以及植物何时生长、开花和结果的信号。在一个变暖的世界里，春天的温度越来越早，秋天的温度越来越晚，因此，如果动物或植物要在新的气候中最好地生存，它们就应该在进行季节性活动时进行调整，比如交配或长叶和开花。我们已经开发出一种方法，将气候变化的测量和预测转化为对动物和植物分布变化的预期，使用一种称为“气候变化速度”的现有测量方法，并使用我们自己开发的称为“季节性气候变化”的新方法来测量季节性事件的变化。这些测量结果显示，在过去的50年里，生命应该改变多少操作才能保持在相同的温度下。在这个项目中，我们希望看到这种新的方法如何与观察到的海洋生物对气候变化的反应相匹配，以便保护和野生动物决策者可以使用它。生物学证据的来源已经被编入数据库，但详细的比较还没有完成。我们希望比较地球仪的速度和生物多样性的模式，看看快速移动气候中的生命与缓慢移动气候中的生命有何不同。我们想看看是否会在某些地区出现物种损失，而在另一些地区出现物种增加，例如，如平均温度移动模式所预测的那样，陆地阻碍了海洋中由气候驱动的生命移动。3.气候变化的速度使我们能够预测生命在特定时期应该移动多远和以什么速度移动。我们想将我们的预测与观察到的变化进行比较，看看它们是否吻合。以类似的方式，我们的“季节性气候变化”将被用来预测季节性事件的时间变化，这些时间变化已经报告，并为时间的变化，尚未以这种方式进行分析。我们将通过将我们的方法应用于2010-2100年全球气候模型预测的海洋温度来预测未来气候相关变化的影响。6.最后，我们希望尽可能广泛地应用该项目的结果。我们将通过准备海洋保护区布局的建议来启动这一进程，以使任何保护措施都能产生尽可能长的影响，帮助生命从一个地方迁移到另一个地方，同时仍然享受保护，并帮助管理捕鱼等季节性活动的变化。

Climate change affects everyone and every living thing on the planet. There is a general agreement among scientists that the world is warming, and that burning coal, gas and oil by people is the main reason for this, through the production of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide. As people living in poverty are vulnerable to the effects of change, so are those organisms living near their tolerance limits for temperature, and other environmental factors, at the edges of their geographical ranges on the planet. A small increase in temperature might mean little to those in the middle of their comfort zone but, to those animals and plants already at their extreme limits, this can mean the difference between life and death. Small warming in global and regional temperatures will mean that new environments, that were previously too cold, will become habitable thus extending current distributions whereas, at the other end of the scale, some areas will start to experience temperatures that are too warm and the organism dies out in the region. Thus, the patterns of temperature change can be used to show how species' boundaries could shift as a consequence of climate change.Similarly, temperature can be the signal for when many animals breed, start migrating and for when plants grow, flower, and fruit. In a warming world spring temperatures are becoming earlier and autumn temperatures are delayed, so if animals or plants are to operate best in their new climates they should adjust when they undertake their seasonal events like mating or producing leaves and flowers.We have developed a way of turning measurements and projections for climate change into expectations for changes in animals and plant distributions, using an existing measurement called the 'velocity of climate change', and for changes in seasonal events, using a new approach developed by ourselves called the 'seasonal climate shift'. These measures show by how much life should have shifted its operations over the last 50 years to stay in the same temperatures. In this project we wish to see how well this new approach matches up with observed responses of marine life to climate change in order that it can be used by conservation and wildlife decision makers. The sources of biological evidence have already been compiled into a database, but the detailed comparisons have not yet been made.Our project has six aims:1. We wish to compare patterns of velocity and biodiversity across the globe, and see how life in fast moving climates differs from that in slow moving climates.2. We want to see whether there will be a loss of species in some areas and a gain in others, for example where land obstructs the climate-driven movement of life in the ocean, as predicted by the patterns of movement of average temperatures. 3. Velocity of climate change allows us to predict by how far and at what rate life should have moved over particular periods. We want to compare our predictions with observed changes, and see how well these match up.4. In a similar way, our 'seasonal climate shift' will be used to predict the changes in timing of seasonal events for those changes in timing already reported and for changes in timing that have not yet been analysed in this way.5. We will make predictions on the effects of future climate-related change by applying our methods to the ocean temperatures predicted by global climate models for 2010-2100. 6. Finally, we want to make the findings of the project as widely applicable as possible. We will start this process by preparing recommendations for the layout of protected areas in the ocean to allow for the longest possible effects of any protection, to help life move from one place to another while still enjoying protection, and to help manage change in seasonal efforts like fishing.