CONTENT - International Society of Zoological Sciences

ICZ2008 – Abstracts S21
Ecological effects of climate change: an overview
Nils Chr. Stenseth
Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES),
University of Oslo, Norway
This presentation will review a broad spectrum of studies
demonstrating the ecological effects of climate change – covering
terrestrial, marine and freshwater systems. Most of the reviewed
studies are based on the statistical analysis of long-term
monitoring data. The trust of the presentation is that we can
prepare us for what might happen (and hence ought to be done)
by looking backwards in time trying to understand how climate
variation has effected ecological processes in the past.
Phylogeographic pattern of the northern edge freshwater crab,
Sinopotamon yangtsekiense: genetic divergence and
evolutionary history inferred from mtDNA sequences
Hongying Sun 1 , Xiuling Lu 1 , Naifa Liu 2* , Qi Li, Kaiya Zhou 1 ,
Daxiang Song 1
1 Jiangsu Key Lab for Biodiversity and Biotechnology, College of
Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210046, China
2 Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China
Sinopotamon is one of the endemic genera to Mainland China, and
a total of 75 species in this genus were recoded in the past nearly
50 years. Of these, only a few distributed north to the Qinling
Montains and the Huai River, and even distributed to both sides of
the Yellow River. The Qinling Montains and the Huai River serve
as natural boundary between southern subtropical and northern
warm temperate in Chinese zoogeographic fauna. S. yantsekiensis
is one of the representatives distributed in the drainages south
from the Yangtze River and north to the Yellow River located in
north of the Qinling Mountains, with rang across the natural
transition between Palaearctic and Oriental regions. We used
phylogeographic approach to elucidate the evolutionary history of
S. yantsekiensis lineages restricted in the northern range of the
species’ distribution; the three sub-clade statues of the species in
the current taxonomy were also assessed with the use of partial
sequences of mitochondrial cox1 and nad5 genes, based on 83
individuals from 13 populations throughout the species’ range. Two
major evolutionary lineages were recovered in our phylogenetic
analyses. The northern lineages comprised of populations
spanning from upper reaches of the Huai River to the Yellow River
drainages, and was basal group in the phylogeny. The southern
lineages included populations located in the lower reaches of the
Yangtze River and Huai River. The divergence for the splits
between the northern edge and elsewhere lineages occurred in the
middle of Pliocene (2.72 Myr). Their evolutionary history was
discussed. Grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of
China Key Project No. 30600010 to DXS.
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Insights inside population genetic data on effects of global
climate changes
De-Xing Zhang
Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing
100101, China
Scientists urge a deeper understanding of the ecological effects of
global climate change, aiming to make reliable predictions of its
consequences. Conventional experimental studies are faced with
some ineluctable challenges, since both the spatial and temporal
scales required for mimicking the process of climate changes are
difficult, if not impossible, to implement in research practice,
leaving aside the complexities of such processes. Here lie the
issues that genetic studies of populations can complement. Global
climate change, and other environmental stresses with strength
and duration, will leave genetic imprints in populations of many
species. This provides a unique window for gaining insights into
ecological effects of past climate changes, such as the Pleistocene
glaciations. Therefore, genetic data of natural populations
preserved rich information about historical global changes the
consequences of which can be examined by comparative studies
of multiple species and across geography. A fairly wealthy amount
of studies already attempted in this area and produced
encouraging results. Currently, what is restricting in such
retrospective investigations is not the data but the analyses that
follow.
Ecological Consequence of Global Climate Change on
Population Abundances of Animals in China
Zhibin Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Integrated Pest Management of Insects
and Rodents in Agriculture, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy
of Sciences, Beijing 100101, P.R. China
Recent IPPC report has reconfirmed the accelerated global
warming trend of our earth in the new centaury. During past
millennia, China has experienced obvious warm and cold phases
or periods. Understanding how temperature oscillations influence
animal spatial distribution and temporal abundances is extremely
valuable in predicting potential impact of the on-going global
warming on biological, ecological and social systems. China has
unique records of many important animals such as elephant,
panda, locust, rodent-borne plague ect. And recently, there has
been great progress in climate reconstruction of temperature,
precipitation, ect using ice core, pollen, tree ring or historical
records. All of these make it possible in analyzing relationship
between population dynamics and climate change. Besides, the
irregular El Nino and Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has been also
recognized to be important factor in affection climate anomalies in
China. ENSO significantly alter precipitation and temperature
pattern in China, thus it is likely to affect population dynamic of
animals. This paper will give a brief review on recent progress in
studying relationship between population dynamics and global
climate change in China, with emphasis on discussing population
change of many important endangered species and agricultural
pests or diseases in China during past millennia or centuries.