Abstract
Climate change is increasingly affecting organisms and ecosystems. The amount of research and the number of articles in this field is overwhelming. However, single studies necessarily consider limited aspects. Hence, there is an increasing need for structuring the research approaches and findings in climate change research in order to direct future action in an efficient way towards research gaps and areas of uncertainty. Here, we review the current state of knowledge accumulated over the last 10 years (2003–2012) about impacts of climate change on species and ecosystems. Almost 1,200 articles of the scientific literature listed in the ISI Web of Science are analysed. We explore the geographical distribution of knowledge gain, the studied taxonomic groups, ecosystems and environmental parameters as well as the applied methods. Several knowledge gaps arise. Most of the first authors of the analysed articles are residents of North America, Australia or Europe. A similar pattern is found for the study areas. Vascular plants and therewith forests are the most studied taxonomic group and ecosystem. The use of models to estimate potential impacts of climate change is well established in climate change impact research and is continuously developing. However, there is a lack of empirical data derived from experimental climate change simulations. In a rapidly evolving research landscape, this review aims at providing an overview of the current patterns of knowledge distribution and research demands arising from knowledge gaps and biases. Our results should help to identify future research needs and priorities.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank the Federal Agency of Nature Conservation in Germany for funding this work (FKZ 3508 85 0600). We also thank four anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.
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Communicated by: Sven Thatje
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Table S1
Search string for the literature study in the ISI Web of Science. The search was restricted to publications between 2003 and 2012. Relevant alternative suffixes were included using the asterisk * (DOC 28 kb)
Fig. S1
Development of the applied methods in scientific climate change impacts research in the ISI Web of Science between 2003 and 2012 (JPEG 210 kb)
Fig. S1
Development of the applied methods in scientific climate change impacts research in the ISI Web of Science between 2003 and 2012 (JPEG 210 kb)
Fig. S2
Correlation of the number of studies with a) the gross domestic product (GDP) of a country, b) the Climate Risk Index (CRI) of a country in 2011, and a correlation of the CRI against the GDP. Sources: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html (GDP, last accessed 30.08.2013) and Harmeling and Eckstein (2012) (Climate Risk Index 2011) (JPEG 2100 kb)
Fig. S3
High resolution image (EPS 732 kb)
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Jaeschke, A., Bittner, T., Jentsch, A. et al. The last decade in ecological climate change impact research: where are we now?. Naturwissenschaften 101, 1–9 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-013-1132-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-013-1132-4