The Known and Potential Effects of Climate Change on Biodiversity in Ontario's Terrestrial Ecosystems

Book excerpt: On- strategies organized according to the need to understand climate site land use planning and management techniques must be change, mitigate the impacts of rapid climate change, and help designed to protect the ecological and social pieces, patterns, Ontarians adapt to climate change: and processes. [...] Given the uncertainty in the amount of emissions and associated effects, natural resource management agencies around the world are using a number of climate models and scenarios of human behaviour to depict a range of potential climatic conditions and impacts that may appear in the next 100 years. [...] It is notable that the countries attending the 2005 climate change conference in Montreal to review and discuss future programs under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol agreed that the development of adaptation tools and techniques should receive significant attention during the next 5 years. [...] Species Distribution and Abundance in Response to Climate Change The distribution and abundance of a species across its geographic range is related to both biotic (e.g., food, competition, and disease) and abiotic (e.g., climate and substrate) factors. [...] There are several ways to examine the effects of climate on terrestrial fauna, and to determine how climate change may affect species and their habitat in the future.