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Copernicus Biodiversity

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Climate change puts pressure on biodiversity as well as on ecosystem services that are crucial for human well-being. The C3S SIS to support Global Biodiversity provides operational climate indicators for proper assessment and management of biodiversity loss.

Context

Mitigating the threat that biodiversity faces from climate change requires a proper management of ecosystems, for instance through ecosystem restoration or species dispersal measures. Yet this is often hindered by a lack of appropriate and easily available information about the future climate.

Objectives

Within the SIS for Global Biodiversity, the goal was to develop tailored climate-biodiversity indicators to assess the impact of temperature, rainfall, and other atmospheric, terrestrial or oceanic variables on:

  • habitat suitability
  • species distribution
  • species fitness and reproduction
  • ecosystem services

The six use cases, from the upper left corner in clockwise direction: sea water temperature-dependent pelagic fish distributions in the North Atlantic; seal reproduction and habitat use with changing ice conditions in the Baltic Sea; northern Europe grassland management practice under climate change; climate change resilience of hedgerows serving as agricultural field margins; tropical forest biodiversity in Central Africa; habitat suitability of golden-headed lion tamarins under climate change in Brazil.

Highlights

  • Extensive dataset of customized bioclimate indicators for the past and future
  • Interactive applications 
  • Co-creation process with biodiversity experts
  • Support for quantifying climate impact on biodiversity and ecosystem services, and designing conservation measures around the world

  • Publication: Ceccarelli, V., M. Ekué, T. Fremout, H. Gaisberger, C. Kettle, H. Taedoumg, H. Wouters, E. Vanuytrecht, K. De Ridder, E. Thomas, 2022. Vulnerability mapping of 100 priority tree species in Central Africa to guide conservation and restoration efforts. Biological conservation, 270, 109554. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109554

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Bioclimate explorer, here showing the indicator ‘maximum temperature during the warmest month’.
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Climate suitability for the endangered golden-headed lion tamarin in Brazil, for present conditions as well as for future time horizons under a medium climate scenario (RCP4.5), and resulting from a species suitability modelling exercise based on 1-km climate data contained in the biodiversity service, showing the disappearance of suitable living areas for the species.
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Comparison of the 50-km (upper right) and 1-km  resolution (lower right) indicator fields, here for air temperature over Central Africa (bounding box in the left panel).
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User requirements workshop organized by KMDA in the Antwerp Zoo.

 

Facts

Budget: 1.4M€

Funded by the European Commission, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S)

Implemented by: 

  • Baltic Environmental Forum Latvia
  • Baltic Environmental Forum Estonia
  • Bioversity International
  • KMDA-CRC, Centre for Research and Conservation of the Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp
  • Arcadis Belgium
  • National Institute of Aquatic Resources, Technical University of Denmark (DTU Aqua)
  • VITO

 Project website