Description du projet
Les effets du changement climatique sur les populations d’oiseaux d’eau continentales
Les eaux intérieures jouent un rôle crucial dans l’écosystème: considérées comme d’importantes sentinelles du changement climatique et comme de véritables sources d’informations sur les phénomènes environnementaux passés, elles offrent également des aires de nidification aux oiseaux migrateurs. Le changement climatique anthropogénique exerce toutefois des effets délétères sur les eaux intérieures comme les lacs de l’Arctique et de la Méditerranée. En effet, il raccourcit les périodes pendant lesquelles l’Arctique est recouverte de glace, ce qui contribue encore davantage au réchauffement planétaire et réduit la quantité d’eau stockée en Méditerranée, une situation qui, à son tour, entraîne des sécheresses. Le projet PAST, financé par l’UE, va étudier l’influence des sécheresses et des phénomènes climatiques extrêmes passés sur les processus à long terme des populations d’oiseaux. Pour ce faire, le projet va adopter une approche paléolimnologique qui révèlera les tendances au niveau des changements environnementaux des périodes précédentes et permettra aux chercheurs d’étudier l’histoire du lac de manière abordable et efficace.
Objectif
Anthropogenic climate change affects all countries and so societies need to begin adapting to the ongoing impacts of these changes. In addition, different biomes respond in distinctive ways to climatic warming. For instance, like oceans, Arctic lakes are strongly affected by shorter ice-cover periods, further decreasing albedo which further increases warming. On the other hand, lakes located in Mediterranean regions are experiencing a decrease in the inundation area and water storage due to the magnitude of the droughts.
It is important to say that inland waters are recognised as important sentinels of climatic change and their sediments accumulate records of past environmental conditions. For this reason, we can use these sediment records to study the trends in environmental changes such as warming or wet periods that occurred in the past. Through paleolimnological analyses, past climate history information can be inferred to determine the timing and degree of change in lake ecosystems. Whilst monitoring data may be short, the paleolimnological approach allows for the study of many years of a lake’s history in a very cost and labour effective manner.
Furthermore, inland waters are frequently nesting areas for migratory birds, and these water bodies are especially sensitive to droughts. For this reason, waterbirds may suffer major losses by limited food supplies and habitat, as well as increased disease due to overcrowding. By using paleolimnological approaches, new methodologies allow us to assess past drought periods along with the long-term changes in bird population.
This is why the main objective of this proposal is to study how past droughts and other climatic extremes have affected long-term dynamics of bird populations using paleolimnological approaches in two areas that are being affected by environment change in such different manners: ponds on nesting islands in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the Mediterranean Region of Spain.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinateur
18071 Granada
Espagne