title: Global biodiversity scenarios for the year 2100.
abstract: Scenarios of changes in biodiversity for the year 2100 can now be developed based on scenarios of changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide, climate, vegetation, and land use and the known sensitivity of biodiversity to these changes. This study identified a ranking of the importance of drivers of change, a ranking of the biomes with respect to expected changes, and the major sources of uncertainties. For terrestrial ecosystems, land-use change probably will have the largest effect, followed by climate change, nitrogen deposition, biotic exchange, and elevated carbon dioxide concentration. For freshwater ecosystems, biotic exchange is much more important. Mediterranean climate and grassland ecosystems likely will experience the greatest proportional change in biodiversity because of the substantial influence of all drivers of biodiversity change. Northern temperate ecosystems are estimated to experience the least biodiversity change because major land-use change has already occurred. Plausible changes in biodiversity in other biomes depend on interactions among the causes of biodiversity change. These interactions represent one of the largest uncertainties in projections of future biodiversity change.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas vinculadas a la Agricultura, Faculty of Agronomy, University of Buenos Aires, Avenida San Martín 4453, Buenos Aires 1417, Argentina. sala@ifeva.edu.ar
authors.forename: O E
authors.initials: OE
authors.lastname: Sala
authors.forename: F S
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Chapin
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Armesto
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Berlow
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bloomfield
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dirzo
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Huber-Sanwald
authors.forename: L F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Huenneke
authors.forename: R B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kinzig
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Leemans
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Lodge
authors.forename: H A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Mooney
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oesterheld
authors.forename: N L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Poff
authors.forename: M T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Sykes
authors.forename: B H
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Walker
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Walker
authors.forename: D H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Wall
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D000818:Animals; D001272:Atmosphere; D002245:Carbon Dioxide; D002980:Climate; D017753:Ecosystem; D005618:Fresh Water; D008954:Models, Biological; D009584:Nitrogen
chemical_list: D002245:Carbon Dioxide; D009584:Nitrogen