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  • Smiley study: How does climate and land use change affect biodiversity?

Smiley study: How does climate and land use change affect biodiversity?

By: Joe Lange

Friday, March 13, 2020

Decorative - a headshot of Tara Smiley
ERI Fellow Tara Smiley

A new study co-authored by Environmental Resilience Institute Fellows Tara Smiley and Pascal Title highlights some of the regional climatic and land use challenges facing animals and ecosystems in North America.

To better understand how species interact within an ecosystem, Smiley, Title, and their colleagues analyzed multiple aspects of biodiversity, using North American rodents as a case study, to determine what roles species play and what would be the impact if they were lost. The team compared geographic range and 11 measures of biodiversity, such as body size, diet, and habitat, to get a more complete picture of how species interact with the ecosystem.

“Understanding multiple measures of biodiversity helps us understand the critical role a species plays,” said Tara Smiley, ERI’s Stable Isotope Ecology Fellow and lead author of the study. “One measure doesn’t act as a tell all. Without additional knowledge, we might not know how the species contributes to an ecosystem until it is too late.”

After mapping large amounts of biodiversity data, the researchers identified “biodiversity hotspots”—areas with high amounts of biodiversity—where conservation efforts could have the greatest impact. Most of these locations are found in western North America.

As the researchers studied the effects of climate and land use change, they mapped the geographic distributions of the biodiversity hotspots in relation to projected climate and land use impacts. This analysis drew attention to the fact that biodiversity hotspots overlap with areas of human impacts and projected high rates of climate change. The interactions could lead to a loss of species and biodiversity.

ERI Fellow Pascal Title

While Indiana is not a biodiversity hotspot relative to other parts of North America, small-mammal communities in the state have already withstood a long history of human impact and may face heightened land-use and climate challenges in the future. 

“When we look ahead, we can see that species loss is not evenly distributed,” Smiley said. “Without conservation, especially of species with small ranges, we will lose unique features of biodiversity on our planet.”

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