A Framework to Advance the Understanding of the Ecological Effects of Extreme Climate Events
Climate change is modifying disturbance regimes, affecting the severity and occurrence of extreme events. Current experiments investigating extreme events have a large diversity of experimental approaches and key aspects such as the interaction with other disturbances, the timing, and long-term effe...
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doaj-da8f3b71904d49e8ab20f395cecfca012020-11-25T00:10:07ZengMDPI AGSustainability2071-10502019-10-011121595410.3390/su11215954su11215954A Framework to Advance the Understanding of the Ecological Effects of Extreme Climate EventsCarlos Sanz-Lazaro0Department of Ecology, University of Alicante, P.O. Box 99, E-03080 Alicante, SpainClimate change is modifying disturbance regimes, affecting the severity and occurrence of extreme events. Current experiments investigating extreme events have a large diversity of experimental approaches and key aspects such as the interaction with other disturbances, the timing, and long-term effects are not usually incorporated in a standardized way. This lack of comparability among studies limits advances in this field of research. This study presents a framework that is comprised of two experimental approaches designed to test expected changes on disturbance regime due to climate change. These approaches test the effects of disturbances becoming more clustered and more extreme. They use common descriptor variables regardless of the type of disturbance and ecosystem. This framework is completed with a compilation of procedures that increase the realism of experiments in the aforementioned key aspects. The proposed framework favours comparability among studies and increases our understanding of extreme events. Examples to implement this framework are given using rocky shores as a case study. Far from being perfect, the purpose of this framework is to act as a starting point that triggers the comparability and refinement of these types of experiments needed to advance our understanding of the ecological effects of extreme events.https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/21/5954climate changedisturbancedriver of environmental changeextreme eventlegacylong-term effectsmultiple disturbancesperturbationresilienceanthropogenic environmental stressortiming |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Carlos Sanz-Lazaro |
spellingShingle |
Carlos Sanz-Lazaro A Framework to Advance the Understanding of the Ecological Effects of Extreme Climate Events Sustainability climate change disturbance driver of environmental change extreme event legacy long-term effects multiple disturbances perturbation resilience anthropogenic environmental stressor timing |
author_facet |
Carlos Sanz-Lazaro |
author_sort |
Carlos Sanz-Lazaro |
title |
A Framework to Advance the Understanding of the Ecological Effects of Extreme Climate Events |
title_short |
A Framework to Advance the Understanding of the Ecological Effects of Extreme Climate Events |
title_full |
A Framework to Advance the Understanding of the Ecological Effects of Extreme Climate Events |
title_fullStr |
A Framework to Advance the Understanding of the Ecological Effects of Extreme Climate Events |
title_full_unstemmed |
A Framework to Advance the Understanding of the Ecological Effects of Extreme Climate Events |
title_sort |
framework to advance the understanding of the ecological effects of extreme climate events |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
series |
Sustainability |
issn |
2071-1050 |
publishDate |
2019-10-01 |
description |
Climate change is modifying disturbance regimes, affecting the severity and occurrence of extreme events. Current experiments investigating extreme events have a large diversity of experimental approaches and key aspects such as the interaction with other disturbances, the timing, and long-term effects are not usually incorporated in a standardized way. This lack of comparability among studies limits advances in this field of research. This study presents a framework that is comprised of two experimental approaches designed to test expected changes on disturbance regime due to climate change. These approaches test the effects of disturbances becoming more clustered and more extreme. They use common descriptor variables regardless of the type of disturbance and ecosystem. This framework is completed with a compilation of procedures that increase the realism of experiments in the aforementioned key aspects. The proposed framework favours comparability among studies and increases our understanding of extreme events. Examples to implement this framework are given using rocky shores as a case study. Far from being perfect, the purpose of this framework is to act as a starting point that triggers the comparability and refinement of these types of experiments needed to advance our understanding of the ecological effects of extreme events. |
topic |
climate change disturbance driver of environmental change extreme event legacy long-term effects multiple disturbances perturbation resilience anthropogenic environmental stressor timing |
url |
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/21/5954 |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT carlossanzlazaro aframeworktoadvancetheunderstandingoftheecologicaleffectsofextremeclimateevents AT carlossanzlazaro frameworktoadvancetheunderstandingoftheecologicaleffectsofextremeclimateevents |
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