Botanical Colloquium by Dr. Jonathan Lenoir, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, France

“BioShifts – a database of species range shifts under anthropogenic climate change”

Unfortunately Jonathan Lenoir cannot travel to Basel due to the strike in France.

The talk will take place online on Zoom instead.

Please use this link to participate: https://unibas.zoom.us/j/69011537628.

The botanical colloquium is a free of cost, public event organized by the botany research groups of Prof. Yvonne Willi, Prof. Sabine Rumpf and Prof. Klaus Schläppi of the Department of Environmental Sciences.

National and international speakers are presenting their latest resarch outcome in the areas of physiological plant ecology, plant genetics and evolution and plant molecular biology. The talks are aimed to draw the interest of a scientific audience and are given in English.

The colloquium is part of the lectures agenda for biology students and is listed under the number and name: "63611 Seminar: Biology of Plants and Ecosystems". Inscribed students who attend regularly and fill out the required questionnaires will gain 2 ECTS.

Abstract

Species distribution changes associated with human-mediated climate change have important consequences on ecosystems and human well-being. Despite mounting evidence, our knowledge of the redistribution of life on Earth is still incomplete with only 0.6% of the described biodiversity on Earth for which range shifts have been documented. I will present the BioShifts database which contains 30,534 observations of velocity of range shifts (VRS) for 12,415 taxa, covering 56 taxonomic classes and 20 phyla across both terrestrial and marine systems. This database is clearly biased towards more VRS data for mobile ectotherms, iconic endotherms and seed-bearing plants. Similarly, a strong geographical bias is noticeable towards the most developed regions in the World. Contrary to former meta-analyses and quantitative syntheses on climate-induced species range shifts, I will show the extreme variability in the magnitude and direction of VRS values that is hiding behind averages across broad taxonomic groups (e.g., amphibians, arthropods, birds, insects, mammals, molluscs and plants) or position within the geographic range (i.e., trailing edge, centroid of the range and leading edge). I will also show that VRS values do not necessarily conform to the observed values in the magnitude and direction of velocity of isotherm shifts (VIS), suggesting other determinants behind the great redistribution of life on Earth.

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