From the Canadian Science Publishing (NRC Research Press)
Climate change invites alien invaders – Is Canada ready?
Ottawa, Ontario – A comprehensive multi-disciplinary synthesis just published in Environmental Reviews reveals the urgent need for further investigation and policy development to address significant environmental, social and economic impacts of invasive alien species (IAS) and climate change. “Effects of climate change on the distribution of invasive alien species in Canada: a knowledge synthesis of range change prediction in a warming world” is the collaborative effort of a team of dedicated researchers at York University’s Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS).
“Many species’ distributions are already changing in response to a warming climate, and ecosystems are predicted to become more vulnerable to invasive species as climatic barriers are eliminated,” says author Dr. Andrea Smith, IRIS Senior Fellow, currently conducting a legislative review of invasive species policy in Canada for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and the Canadian Aquatic Invasive Species Network. “The interactive effects of climate change and invasive species are expected to have profound consequences for environments, economies and societies worldwide. For example, many new infectious diseases will likely spread to the Arctic, and coordinated circumpolar disease monitoring and targeted healthcare planning will be needed to handle this new pressure. Yet, these two drivers of global change are rarely considered jointly in policy and management initiatives.”
This review reveals the barriers to predicting invasive species’ range changes under climate change, including the complexity of the issue, lack of ecological data, and failure to address climate change–IAS interactions in research and policy. Despite the multi-disciplinary nature of the issue, very few studies examine the socio-economic dimensions of the problem and research has tended to focus on predictions of how the distribution of existing invasive species in Canada (including mountain pine beetle, gypsy moth, smallmouth bass and lyme disease) will be affected by climate change, rather than on potential invasive species that might expand their range into Canada.
“This is just another example of how climate change is a big threat multiplier,” notes Dr. John P. Smol, Editor of Environmental Reviews and professor at Queen’s University where he also holds the Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change. “We simply have not even begun to understand all the negative repercussions of this problem.” This synthesis is the first to characterize the current state of knowledge on this critical issue in Canada. According to Smith, this knowledge synthesis approach is useful for identifying both what we know and what we don’t know, so that research, policy, and management can be targeted toward addressing those gaps. And, although knowledge of the impact of climate change on invasive species distribution is incomplete, scientific research is accumulating which can be used as the foundation for policy development.
The IRIS research team received funding from the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS — www.cfcas.ca), an independent funding body dedicated to supporting research that improves our understanding of climate change impacts on health, safety, economy and environment.
Smith’s co-authors are Dr. Nina Hewitt (IRIS Senior Fellow and York University Department of Geography), Dr. Nicole Klenk (IRIS Senior Fellow), Professor Dawn Bazely (IRIS Director and York Department of Biology), Professor Norman Yan (IRIS Core Faculty and Dorset Environmental Science Centre and York Department of Biology), Professor Stepan Wood (IRIS Acting Director and Osgoode Hall Law School), Dr. James MacLellan (IRIS Senior Fellow and York Faculty of Environmental Studies), Professor Carla Lipsig-Mummé (Director of IRIS – affiliated Work in a Warming World program and York Department of Social Science) and Irene Henriques (IRIS Core Faculty member and Schulich School of Business).
Environmental Reviews, published by NRC Research Press, is an electronic-only quarterly review journal that covers a wide range of important environmental issues, including climate change. http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/er
For more information contact:
Corresponding author: Andrea Smith (email: geckoals@yorku.ca) Full Reference: Smith, A., Hewitt, N., Klenk, N., Bazely, D.R., Yan, N., Wood, S., Henriques, I., MacLellan, J.I., Lipsig-Mummé, C. 2012. Effects of climate change on the distribution of invasive alien species in Canada: a knowledge synthesis of range change projections in a warming world. Environmental Reviews, 20, 1-16. doi: 10-1139/a11-020. [Available Open Access on the http://www.nrcresearchpress.com website.]
About the Publisher
NRC Research Press, the publishing arm of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) since 1929, transitioned in September 2010 from NRC and the Federal Government of Canada into an independent not-for-profit organization operating under the new name Canadian Science Publishing. Canadian Science Publishing (which continues to operate under the brand NRC Research Press) is the foremost scientific publisher in Canada and one of the most advanced electronic publishing services in the world. With over 50 highly skilled experts and an editorial team comprising some of the world’s leading researchers, NRC Research Press communicates scientific discoveries to more than 175 countries.
About IRIS
IRIS (http://www.irisyorku.ca) is an interdisciplinary research centre at York University dedicated to pursuing multifaceted approaches to the contemporary challenges of sustainability. It is a focal point for sustainability-related research and action at all ten of York’s faculties. Through collaborative and interdisciplinary research, IRIS strives to push beyond traditional research methods to tackle real-world challenges with unique solutions. It supports sustainability-related research of York faculty members and students and is a leader in trans-disciplinary team-based research.
Disclaimer
Canadian Science Publishing operates under the brand NRC Research Press but is not affiliated with the National Research Council Canada. Papers published by Canadian Science Publishing are peer-reviewed by experts in their field. The views of the authors in no way reflect the opinions of Canadian Science Publishing or the National Research Council of Canada. Requests for commentary about the contents of any study should be directed to the authors.
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UPDATE: this is good reason to bring attention to this again –
Aliens Cause Global Warming: A Caltech Lecture by Michael Crichton
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“We simply have not even begun to understand all the negative repercussions of this problem.”
What about all the positive ones?
I suppose they think all change is negative. Too bad life is motion, and motion is change.
Canada is threatened by the most destructive and pernicious species of all: Climate scientists.
They really do ‘lay it on thick’ don’t they?
quote(s)-
urgent need – invasive alien species – more vulnerable – profound consequences – new infectious diseases – negative repercussions – critical issue – big threat /quote
What is wrong with them, why so negative? Walking into a doctor’s surgery with that sort of mindset will see you given some Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors, a referral to ‘a specialist’ and the advice ‘take some time off’
Or would they really rather that Canadia disappeared under a slab of ice 1,000 feet thick?
That would get them certified also 😮
Canada would benefit from warmer times. The place is somewhat frozen now. However cheery news won’t bring home the govt. grant bacon. It’s got to be scary news. These fear mongers are science prostitutes. Anything for money.
No need to worry yet.
As long as kangaroos aren’t duking it out with poley bears all is well.
“For example, many new infectious diseases will likely spread to the Arctic, and coordinated circumpolar disease monitoring and targeted healthcare planning will be needed to handle this new pressure.”
What is being hinted at here, I believe, is the once-and-future-goal of the climate change alarmists to re-train the military so that it’s primary objective is to manage the population of its own country.
There have been and still are attempts to link “national security” to climate change in both the US and Australia, by prediction food shortages, floods, droughts, looting, crop failure, “displaced populations,” border conflicts, and General Mayhem. The cause for retraining the military to deal with “climate refugees” was even taken up by John Kerry, but the video has since been scrubbed from the internet. Underlying this message and this study, I believe, is renewed efforts trump up the need to refit the militaries of Western nations for “targeted planning” to “handle” citizens in their own countries, rather than their traditional roles of fighting foreign armies and combatants. “[T]argeted healthcare planning will be needed to handle this new pressure.” “Many new infectios diseases will likely spread…” “very few studies examine the socio-economic dimensions of the problem.” “[P]olicy and management intitiatives” for domestic populations are being implicated.
Canada must have been like Kenya a few thousand years ago. Wild giraffe, rhino, lions and all.
There’s the Baby and then there’s the Bathwater.
Oh my goodness…..
Thank God we have these cutting edge scientists to discover all these new things…
Oh, Canada! We stand on guard for thee!
Regardless of how the climate changes, invasive species are a real problem that needs to be addressed.
I don’t feel the least bit sorry for our neighbors to the north (other than having to cope with Obama, that is). Living in the Deep South, we have to deal with armadillo’s (illegal aliens from south of the border), pythons(likewise), and Kudzu. 😉
I have not read all of the previous comments, so mine might be redundant, but I had gotten the impression that warmists asserted that species were unable to move fast enough to keep in a favorable location as climate warms.
Donald Mitchell said, “that warmists asserted that species were unable to move fast enough to keep in a favorable location as climate warms.”
Great point! We are constantly told species will die out because they can’t keep up with CC and now we are told that species will spread because of CC.
As others have said this is a tax-funded, self-indulgent, egotism at its worse.
As Scott Adams used to write about consultants in Dilbert, “I am a consultant, give me more money.”
Guess I’ll have to write a letter…again!
Clive
Alien species have been in the Vancouver area for a long time. They just refer to themselves as environmentalists.
As a friend of mine and I were discussing yesterday, if all the ice melts and floods out Vancouver and SF what’s the big deal. We’re smart enough to move. I”m not sure sure about the alien species.
Ah, but The Borg is already here. Resistance is futile.
Wow look at all them authors. So many rent seeking morons, so few bull…..never mind, I don’t want to get snipped, I’ll just put ’em back in the secure cabinet. /humour off
Any above ground insect, mammal or bird that lives in Canada is able to survive a 30 degree Centigrade temperature change in less than 24 hours. In just the last week any above ground insect, mammal or bird that could not cope with a change from about +5 down to -30 will have been wiped out if it was located anywhere in central Canada, from the Rocky Mountains in the West to the Applications in the East, South of Latitude 55 North. In late spring or early fall a similar change (+5 to +30) also does occur.
Why is anyone worried about a 2 degree change in 876,600 hours?
Before we forget, it was only in April that some guys apparently from NASA and Penn State suggested that interstellar aliens might punish us all for our greenhouse gas sins.
The Guardian and the authors scuttled to amend the story after the tide of ridicule hit.
Presumably the consensus argument since then was ‘well, if invading little green men don’t work, why don’t we try beetles and moths?’
What satire tag? Not on the android version
“Many species’ distributions are already changing in response to a warming climate, and ecosystems are predicted to become more vulnerable to invasive species as climatic barriers are eliminated,”
Canada has a temperature range from about -70 to +45 degrees C, rainfall between less than 5 inches to more than 50 inches per year, deserts, swamps, mountains, rivers, lakes, deciduous, coniferous and mixed forests, vast grasslands and tundra and area of 9,984,670 square kilometers.
What exactly are these ‘climatic barriers’?
Since Canada will be headed back under a mile of ice starting sometime in the next 2000 years (my best guess is about 700 years from now) I don’t see how it can possibly matter what lives on that ground Until That Day.
If something can manage to live there for a brief while, I say “Go For It!” (As long as they don’t make the hockey teams any better… to hard to beat them as it is 😉
On a species survival basis, the “only in the cold” species have been moving up and down mountains for millions of years, living on the cold interface between warm competitors and Froze-To-Death…
Similarly, those introduced Python in Florida and the introduced Iguana are not going to survive the more frozen Florida of 1000 years on. (Which is WHY there were no similar obligatory warm species there before the introductions). Just a couple of years ago we had a cold and frozen Florida Winter and it was “Raining Iguanas”…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/06/cold-killing-iguanas/
Anyone who thinks they can stop time and freeze the Holocene as it stands is going to find out there is another kind of freeze more powerful than they are…
The Canadian ice will sterilize any ‘invasive aliens’ more effectively than anything else. It will even remove all those pesky invasive hominids and their city / colonies… (depositing all of them and the rubble in the ‘lower 48’). It’s not a question of “if”, only of “when”.
albertalad says
“While the native range of any species may change naturally with changes in climate and landform, they do so very slowly, often taking many hundreds if not thousands of years.”
Sometimes it can change quite quickly. The Cattle Egret for example has colonized most of North and South America in less than a century. Such sudden large-scale changes in distribution are actually rather common when conditions change.
I blame the education system for producing half-mental-handicapped people, otherwise this kind of news wouldn’t show up.
Everywhere except the East African Rift, humans are an alien species. The devastation they have brought is immeasurable.
Hence the current push to eliminate them.
Vulcan Alberta is ready for the aliens:
http://www.vulcantourism.com/
(For non nerds, Vulcan is Spock’s (why isn’t he a doctor) home planet (though his mother is human?).
Dear pedants, is it spelled Spock’s, or Spocks’ ? My phone likes the first version.