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Research article2018Peer reviewedOpen access

Global assessment of early warning signs that temperature could undergo regime shifts

Chevalier, Mathieu; Grenouillet, Gael

Abstract

Climate change metrics have been used to quantify the exposure of geographic areas to different facets of change and relate these facets to different threats and opportunities for biodiversity at a global scale. In parallel, a suite of indicators have been developed to detect approaching transitions between alternative stable states in ecological systems at a local scale. Here, we explore whether particular geographic areas over the world display evidence for upcoming critical transitions in the temperature regime using five Early Warning Indicators (EWIs) commonly used in the literature. Although all EWIs revealed strong spatial variations regarding the likelihood of approaching transitions we found differences regarding the strength and the distribution of trends across the world, suggesting either that different mechanisms might be at play or that EWIs differ in their ability to detect approaching transitions. Nonetheless, a composite EWI, constructed from individual EWIs, showed congruent trends in several areas and highlighted variations across latitudes, between marine and terrestrial systems and among ecoregions within systems. Although the underlying mechanisms are unclear, our results suggest that some areas over the world might change toward an alternative temperature regime in the future with potential implications for the organisms inhabiting these areas.

Published in

Scientific Reports
2018, Volume: 8, article number: 10058Publisher: NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP

      SLU Authors

    • Chevalier, Mathieu

      • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
      • Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse III
      • The National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)

    Sustainable Development Goals

    SDG13 Climate action

    UKÄ Subject classification

    Ecology
    Climate Research

    Publication identifier

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-28386-x

    Permanent link to this page (URI)

    https://res.slu.se/id/publ/95974