Thresholds and tipping points are frequently used concepts to address the risks of global change pressures and their mitigation. It is tempting to also consider them to understand biodiversity change and design measures to ensure biotic integrity. In this perspective, we argue that thresholds and tipping points do not work well in the context of biodiversity change for conceptual, ethical, and empirical reasons.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12526-023-01342-3

#biodiversity #HIFMB #tippingpoints #conservation

Open access article led by Lucie Kuczynski shows that caution is required when analysing temporal trends in species richness: net imbalance between colonisation and extinction will bias towards positive slopes as shown by data and neutral simulations. As long as environmental conditions change, the absence of a trend in richness is no good news as it deviates negatively from the expected increase.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-023-02078-w

#biodiversity #monitoring #biodiversitychange #HIFMB #TimeSeries

Highly important paper about projected changes in marine biodiversity under different climate scenarios. Based on information on >33000 species and scenarios for 7 environmental factors, Doro Hodapp and colleagues show that we need to expect massive turnover characterized by reductions in suitable habitat size and separation into smaller sub-areas.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.16612

#Biodiversity #RangeShift #Scenarios #HIFMB #ClimateChange #HIFMB
@awi @geomar_en

New #metaanalysis out now in #Oikos led by @MarenPlankton on the effects of light limitation on marine primary producers.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/oik.09501

We found high physiological adaptation potential to reduced light but overall negative growth and biomass responses. Clear scaling to percent remaining light allows using the results as predictive baseline for future coastal darkening.

#PlanktonEcologyLab #HIFMB