The article under review titled ‘The impacts of climate change on ecosystem structure and function’ was published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2013. This article briefly discusses the hot topic of the contemporary world: climate change and its adverse effects on multiple ecosystems, including terrestrial, marine, and other ecosystems. Here, the author takes the USA’s multiple ecosystems as a case study, which he further divides into seven key findings.
He addresses the adverse effects of climate change on sea ice, lakes, and coastal ecosystems. The author provides us with the example of the Arctic Ocean, where the sea is melting at an alarming rate because of which the sea level is rising, in turn increasing the chances of more floods. It also projects a direct threat to people living in coastal areas and to marine life (including coral reefs, etc.). The increased precipitation rate is also a major hindrance to the dis infestation of sea water by UV rays, which is giving rise to different parasite and algal blooms.
Also, the author points out the effects of climate change resulting in biome shifts. These biome shifts may have increased NPP in some cases, like the massive growth of forests, but have also resulted in decreased NPP in most of the cases. He further talks about two types of feedback: positive and negative, which address ecosystem state change.
He also links wildfires, increased pests, and the forest mortality rate with climate change. Then, he talks about the winter warming, where the snow is an insulator of the soil; its absence could turn the soil cold, which would ultimately destroy the nutritional value of the soil and affect seed plantations. Intensification of the hydro-logic cycle is another problem caused by climate change, which ultimately affects the pH of the water.
While giving concluding remarks, the author terms it as an important issue to discuss, which is now being addressed by many states worldwide and policy-making has started. He highlights climate change as an alarming threat to all ecosystems.
Overall, the article can be considered a mixture of descriptive and research-based, where the author has first described the impacts of climate change and then provided several research-based findings side by side. However, the article falls short in providing a way forward for what should be done in the future in order to overcome this threat of climate change.
The writer is a student of “BS-IR” at “National Defence University” and a member of PYDIR.
Article: “The impacts of climate change on ecosystem structure and function”
Grimm, N. B., Chapin III, F. S., Bierwagen, B., Gonzalez, P., Groffman, P. M., Luo, Y., … & Williamson, C. E. (2013). The impacts of climate change on ecosystem structure and function. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 11(9), 474-482.
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1890/120282