Biomedical subjects
Gian-Reto Walther
Publications and source records attributed to Gian-Reto Walther.
An ecological 'footprint' of climate change.
Recently, there has been increasing evidence of species' range shifts due to changes in climate. Whereas most of these shifts relate ground truth biogeographic data to a general warming trend in regional or global climate data, we here present a reanalysis of both biogeographic and bioclimatic data of equal spatio-temporal resolution, covering a time span of more than 50 years. Our results reveal a coherent and synchronous shift in both species' distribution and climate. They show not only a shift in the northern margin of a species, which is in concert with gradually increasing winter temperatures in the area, they also confirm the simulated species' distribution changes expected from a bioclimatic model under the recent, relatively moderate climate change.
Ecological responses to recent climate change.
There is now ample evidence of the ecological impacts of recent climate change, from polar terrestrial to tropical marine environments. The responses of both flora and fauna span an array of ecosystems and organizational hierarchies, from the species to the community levels. Despite continued uncertainty as to community and ecosystem trajectories under global change, our review exposes a coherent pattern of ecological change across systems. Although we are only at an early stage in the projected trends of global warming, ecological responses to recent climate change are already clearly visible.