A symposium focusing on climate's effects on predators -- causing cascading effects on whole ecosystems -- will take place on Tuesday, August 12th during the Ecological Society of America's 99th Annual Meeting, held this year in Sacramento, California...................As we have heard from Dr. Cristina Eisenberg and other biologists over the previous weeks and months, trophic carnivores like Wolves, Pumas and Bears send ripples throughout the food web, regulating the effects other animals have on that ecosystem.................... Ecologists are just beginning to understand how the impacts of climate change are affecting predatory keystone species and their ecosystems.............We will continue to report on all research and findings regarding this important topic

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sciencedaily/plants_animals/ecology/~3/AxWBFyvMvJQ/140811180326.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email(click on this link to read full article)

Climate change, predators, and trickle down effects on ecosystems

Date:

August 11, 2014

Source:

Ecological Society of America

Summary:

Because predator species are animals that survive
 by preying on other organisms, they send ripples
throughout the food web, regulating the effects
 other animals have on that ecosystem. Ecologists
 are just beginning to understand how the impacts
of climate change are affecting predatory keystone
species and their ecosystems

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2. (PDF)Free
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2. Bioenergetic Prediction of Climate Change
3.  Impacts on Northern Mammals1

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2. Murray M. Humphries2,1,(click on this link for story)
3. James Umbanhowar2 and
4. Kevin S. McCann2

+ Author Affiliations

1. ¹Department of Natural Resource Sciences, Macdonald Campus, McGill University, 21,111 Lakeshore Road, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec H9X 3V9, Canada
2. ²Department of Zoology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada

Abstract

Climate change will likely alter the distribution and abundance of northern mammals through a combination of direct, abiotic effects (e.g., changes in temperature and precipitation) and indirect, biotic effects (e.g., changes in the abundance of resources, competitors, and predators).

 Bioenergetic approaches are ideally suited to predicting the impacts of climate change because individual energy budgets integrate biotic and abiotic influences, and translate individual function into population and community outcomes. In this review, we illustrate how bioenergetics can be used to predict the regional biodiversity, species range limits, and community trophic organization of mammals under future climate scenarios. 

 Although reliable prediction of climate change impacts for particular species requires better data and theory on the physiological ecology of northern mammals, two robust hypotheses emerge from the bioenergetic approaches presented here. First, the impacts of climate change in northern regions will be shaped by the appearance of new species at least as much as by the disappearance of current species. Second, seasonally inactive mammal species (e.g., hibernators), which are largely absent from the Canadian arctic at present, should undergo substantial increases in abundance and distribution in response to climate change, probably at the expense of continuously active mammals already present in the arctic.