Great news from Dr. Pavel Tarasov:
Science magazine recently published an article entitled “Past and future global transformation of terrestrial ecosystems under climate change” (Nolan et al., Science 361, 920-923 (2018) 31 August 2018, in which two members of the BHAP team (Stefanie Müller and Pavel Tarasov) representing the FU Berlin contributed as co-authors.
Abstract: Impacts of global climate change on terrestrial ecosystems are imperfectly constrained by ecosystem models and direct observations. Pervasive ecosystem transformations occurred in response to warming and associated climatic changes during the last glacial-to-interglacial transition, which was comparable in magnitude to warming projected for the next century under high-emission scenarios. We reviewed 594 published paleoecological records to examine compositional and structural changes in terrestrial vegetation since the last glacial period and to project the magnitudes of ecosystem transformations under alternative future emission scenarios. Our results indicate that terrestrial ecosystems are highly sensitive to temperature change and suggest that, without major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, terrestrial ecosystems worldwide are at risk of major transformation, with accompanying disruption of ecosystem services and impacts on biodiversity.
Congratulations to Dr. Pavel Tarasov and Dr. Stefanie Müller and all co-authors!