CNRS, Université Toulouse III Paul Sabatier, ENFA; UMR5174 EDB (Laboratoire Évolution & Diversité Biologique), 118 route de Narbonne, F-31062, Toulouse, France.
Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7044, 750 07, Uppsala, Sweden.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jul 3;8(1):10058. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-28386-x.
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.
气候变化指标被用于量化地理区域对不同变化方面的暴露程度，并将这些方面与全球范围内生物多样性的不同威胁和机遇联系起来。与此同时，还开发了一系列指标来检测生态系统在局部尺度上从替代稳定状态向另一种状态转变的临近程度。在这里，我们使用文献中常用的五个早期预警指标（EWI）来探索世界上是否存在特定地区即将发生温度变化的临界点。尽管所有 EWI 都显示出在接近转变的可能性方面具有强烈的空间变化，但我们发现全球范围内的趋势强度和分布存在差异，这表明可能存在不同的机制，或者 EWI 在检测临近转变的能力上存在差异。尽管如此，由单个 EWI 构建的复合 EWI 在几个地区显示出一致的趋势，并突出了纬度间、海洋和陆地系统之间以及系统内生态区之间的差异。尽管潜在机制尚不清楚，但我们的结果表明，世界上的一些地区未来可能会向替代温度模式转变，这可能对居住在这些地区的生物产生影响。
