Conservation Planning When Species Are on the Move: Preparing for the Climate-Induced Redistribution of Life

This seminar will be presented in person only; there will be no live remote viewing available. Please join us in Bren Hall 1414. 

ABSTRACT

As the world has warmed, species distributions have moved polewards in latitude, upwards in elevation and deeper in ocean depth. This global redistribution has impacts on management and conservation objectives, that calls on ecologists to improve prediction, observation, and coordination capacity to understand biodiversity change. Here I review what we know about species range shifts in the ocean and on land, and the factors that lead to variation in range shifts. I show how developing data science and coordinating observation capacities, including use of environmental genomics monitoring networks, can help to transform our knowledge towards faster detection and attribution of biodiversity change, with the goal of a predictive understanding for envisioning and planning common futures.

BIO

Jennifer Sunday is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair at McGill University, specializing in understanding biodiversity responses to climate change through range shifts, adaptation, and ecological interactions. Her work has advanced our understanding of climate change impacts in the ocean, the potential for conservation action to reduce climate impacts, and ways to implement genomic technologies to track biodiversity change. Much of Dr. Sunday and her team’s approach to track and understand biodiversity change is to resurrect, combine, and synthesize existing data from the published literature, through ecological data synthesis, where she sees great potential for advancing a predictive understanding of biodiversity change.