Conference: Infrastructure and ecosystem adaptations in the face of global climate change; Baltimore, Maryland, August, 2015

Ecological Society Of America, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

In August 2015, the Ecological Society of America (ESA) celebrates its centennial year with a major conference in Baltimore, MD. The meeting theme, Ecological Science at the Frontier, reflects back 100 years on ESA as a scientific society, as well as into the uncharted future of the planet. This award will provide partial support for one of the main products of that meeting, a centennial special issue of the ESA membership journal, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, that looks forward to the next 100 years of life on Earth. Future generations will have to increasingly deal with the impacts of a changing climate in a wide range of practical ways. Many countries are already constructing or evaluating a range of new infrastructure prototypes, with the aim of supporting ecosystems and ecosystem services, and protecting human lives and property. It is critical that scientists are engaged in this discussion as investments are projected to increase dramatically over the next century. Therefore, ESA invited the authors to showcase the most interesting innovations around the world that address predicted future trajectories of change in ecosystems as climates change, and how humans might respond to those changes. Because all special issues of Frontiers are gold open access on the ESA website, this publication will be fully accessible to all interested readers. Authors are also welcome to post copies of their papers to their own personal or institutional websites, further increasing accessibility. Since Frontiers is designed to be understandable to a very broad audience, one way that scientists use it is as explanatory material when meeting with non-scientists, particularly resource managers and policy makers. As the planet changes, both the scientists and their stakeholder communities will benefit from having information on these infrastructural developments in one understandable package. Finally, this special issue will provide scientists with an early opportunity to develop related research agendas for addressing the challenges presented, the results of which will be critical to public policy as most regions of the world prepare to invest in adaptation. Specific topics for this special issue of Frontiers include how infrastructure systems will respond to increased temperatures in cities, accelerating rates of sea level rise, long-term droughts, increased flooding, and species movements towards northern latitudes and higher elevations. Other topics focus on the changes in scientific understanding required for tracking and predicting major changes in ecosystems, in the form of both new statistical analyses and integrated models that cross scales from local populations of organisms to continents. Finally, this issue will also describe key modeling efforts that may influence our thinking about ecosystems in a changing climate and catalyze the development of new ideas related to coastal ecosystems, river and watershed dynamics, continental-scale biogeographic responses to climate change, and urban heat island effects related to human health.