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，因为它们会产生温室气体，主要是二氧化碳。正如生活在贫困中的人们容易受到变化的影响一样，那些生活在它们对温度和其他环境因素的承受极限附近、生活在它们在地球上地理范围边缘的生物也是如此。温度的小幅上升对那些处于舒适区的动物来说可能意义不大，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范围，而在尺度的另一端，一些地区将开始经历温度过暖，该地区的生物将灭绝。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，温度可以作为许多动物繁殖、开始迁徙的信号，也可以作为植物生长、开花和结果的信号。在一个变暖的世界里，春天的气温越来越早，秋天的气温越来越晚，因此，如果动物或植物要在新的气候条件下生存得最好，它们就应该在进行交配或长叶开花等季节性活动时进行调整。我们已经开发了一种方法，将气候变化的测量和预测转化为对动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一种新方法，称为“季节性气候变化”。这些测量表明，在过去的50年里，为了保持相同的温度，生命应该改变多少活动。在这个项目中，我们希望看到这种新方法如何与海洋生物对气候变化的观察反应相匹配，以便它可以被保护和野生动物决策者使用。生物证据的来源已经编入一个数据库，但是还没有进行详细的比较。我们的项目有六个目标：1。我们希望比较全球范围内速度和生物多样性的模式，并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。我们想看看是否在某些地区物种会减少，而在另一些地区物种会增加，例如，根据平均温度的运动模式，陆地阻碍了海洋中由气候驱动的生命运动。3. 气候变化的速度使我们能够预测生命在特定时期移动的距离和速度。我们想把我们的预测与观测到的变化进行比较，看看它们吻合得如何。以类似的方式，我们的“季节性气候变化”将用于预测那些已经报告的时间变化和尚未以这种方式分析的时间变化的季节性事件的时间变化。我们将运用我们的方法对2010-2100年全球气候模式预测的海洋温度进行预测，从而预测未来与气候相关的变化的影响。6. 最后，我们想使这个项目的发现尽可能广泛地适用。我们将从制定海洋保护区布局建议开始这一进程，以使任何保护都能产生最长可能的影响，帮助生物在享受保护的同时从一个地方迁移到另一个地方，并帮助管理季节性活动（如捕鱼）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.