IFEVA   02662
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES FISIOLOGICAS Y ECOLOGICAS VINCULADAS A LA AGRICULTURA
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
artículos
Título:
Determinants of biodiversity change: Ecological tools for building scenarios
Autor/es:
O. SALA; R. JACKSON
Revista:
ECOLOGY
Referencias:
Año: 2006 vol. 87 p. 1875 - 1876
ISSN:
0012-9658
Resumen:
As defined in the recent Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), biodiversity scenarios are
plausible alternative futures. They do not attempt to predict the precise future state of biodiversity,
but rather they identify the consequences of the different paths that human society may follow for
biodiversity. Scenarios are designed to assist decision makers by identifying costs and benefits, in
terms of biodiversity, of alternative actions. Within the framework of the MA, the first stage in
developing biodiversity scenarios was to identify the major drivers of biodiversity change in the next
50100 years. Land-use change, climate change, and nutrient enrichment were identified as the major
drivers of biodiversity change in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. The next steps in constructing
successful biodiversity scenarios are (1) assessing changes in drivers of different socioeconomic
scenarios and (2) developing the algorithms that relate changes in drivers with changes in
biodiversity. This Special Feature focuses on a key component of the second of these two steps:
evaluating the current tools used by ecologists to develop scenarios based on changes in drivers of
biodiversity change.