[Fwd: Re: biodiversity and climate change]

[Louis Francois]

-------- Message d'origine --------
Sujet: Re: biodiversity and climate change
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:34:03 +0200
De: Louis Francois <fran...@astro.ulg.ac.be>
A: Etienne Branquart <ebran...@gmail.com>
CC: "alain.ha...@ulg.ac.be" <Alain.Ha...@ulg.ac.be>, "MAES,
Dirk" <Dirk...@inbo.be>, Sandrine Godefroid
<sandrine....@br.fgov.be>, Dufrêne Marc
<M.Du...@mrw.wallonie.be>, Hans Van Dyck <hans.v...@uclouvain.be>,
Erika BAUS <erika...@naturalsciences.be>, Hendrik Segers
<hendrik...@naturalsciences.be>, tit...@lippmann.lu,
ivan...@ua.ac.be, Dominiqu...@health.fgov.be,
louis.f...@ulg.ac.be, e.ser...@ulg.ac.be, erik.ma...@ua.ac.be
Références: <5e3fa4e0809160715k20f...@mail.gmail.com>



Dear colleagues,

Concerning the first point (climatic projections), I would like to let
you know the
work of one our student Marie Dury, who just presented one week ago an
analysis
of the IPCC climate projections for Belgium in the framework of her master
thesis in Geography (or. Climatology). She first tested the quality of
all available IPCC
models on the 1970-1999 period by comparing the model outputs over Belgium
with meteorological station data for this period. She then selected the
best models
and analysed their projections of future climate in terms of (seasonal
and annual) means of
temperature and precipitation, as well as extremes (e.g., number of
frost days) and variance
of temperature and precipitations.
I think this work should be very useful for our purpose.

Regarding point 6, for plants, we could provide projections of future
distributions of some
species in Europe from our mechanistic model, but the evaluation of the
threat on plant species
diversity is much more difficult.

Let me know if you are interested.

With best regards,
Louis François

Etienne Branquart a écrit:

> Dear colleagues,
>
> Please find hereafter the structure of WP1 contribution that should be
> finalised in the framework of the activities of the 'biodiversity and
> climate change' forum animated by the Belgian Biodiversity Platform.
>
> 1. Climatic projections in Europe, with a focus on Belgium
> 2. Species adaptability and vulnerability to climate change (e.g.
> dispersal, demography, ecological plasticity, etc.)
> 3. Ecosystem adaptability and vulnerability to climate change (incl.
> resistance/resilience issues)
> 4. Interactions between climate change and other biodiversity drivers
> (specialist species endangered)
> 5. Climate change threats to biodiversity in Europe
> 6. How much is Belgian biodiversity likely to be affected by climate
> change at the end of the Century?
> 7. Consequences for human well-being
>
> Most of those points could be easily developed based on a review of
> recent scientific literature and I'm currently working on it (a first
> draft will be available for comments and discussion in early October).
>
> However, as you know, detailed information for point 6 is rather
> limited and scientific work should be performed before being able to
> have a clear vision on species and ecosystems the more at risk in
> Belgium and on the intensity of species turnover and extinction based
> on climatic predictions.
>
> To go out of the woods, I think we can produce rapidly a first report
> with rather limited contents for point 6 (+ message addressed to
> funding bodies that this gap should be filled urgently) and launch in
> parallel a small working group in charge of gathering information and
> developing predictive approaches. It could be done for a few taxonomic
> groups for which detailed distribution data are available at the
> Belgian scale (e.g. vascular plants, bryophytes?, butterflies,
> dragonflies, grasshoppers?, fish, amphibians and birds). Work should
> be purely scientific in a first step, with the objective to produce
> asap high level scientific publications.
>
> Three approaches have been proposed so far in this direction, based on
> (i) bioclimatic classification (Alain Hambuckers), (ii) species
> life-history traits (Sandrine Godefroid) and (iii) bioclimatic
> modelling (Dirk Maes).
>
> I would like to ask you if you would agree to be involved in this
> 'prediction' working group and be present at a discussion meeting to
> be planned to exchange ideas and share responsibilities. In the
> affirmative, I'll make this proposal in a few days to the whole forum
> and ask who is interested to be involved in that working group.
> Potential dates for a meeting are: October 13, 20, 21 and 24. Thanks
> to let me know asap if you any preference for some of them?
>
> Thank you very much in advance for your contribution. Very best regards,
>
> Etienne Branquart
> Belgian Biodiversity Platform
> http://www.biodiversity.be
>
> PS: Alain, Sandrine and Dirk, would you be so kind to prepare a short
> description of your approach (from a few lines to maximum 2 pages) to
> be sent to the forum at the end of this week?
>

--
===========================================================
Louis FRANCOIS
Chargé de cours
Modélisation du Climat et des Cycles Biogéochimiques
Institut d'Astrophysique et de Géophysique
Université de Liège, Bat. B5c
17 Allée du Six Août
B-4000 LIEGE (Belgium)
e-mail: fran...@astro.ulg.ac.be

Tel. +32 4 366 97 76 (Office)
+32 4 366 97 74 (Secretary)
+32 86 45 64 55 (Home)
FAX +32 4 366 97 11 (Fax)
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--
===========================================================
Louis FRANCOIS
Chargé de cours
Modélisation du Climat et des Cycles Biogéochimiques
Institut d'Astrophysique et de Géophysique
Université de Liège, Bat. B5c
17 Allée du Six Août
B-4000 LIEGE (Belgium)
e-mail: fran...@astro.ulg.ac.be

Tel. +32 4 366 97 76 (Office)
+32 4 366 97 74 (Secretary)
+32 86 45 64 55 (Home)
FAX +32 4 366 97 11 (Fax)
===========================================================