Photo by Dr Banas
“When we design mathematical models of food-web interactions, we’re trying to imagine the perspective that the birds and fish would take if they could explain themselves. How much are a lot of small, skinny prey worth compared to one perfect large one? How much later in the year can the good-quality prey arrive before they aren’t useful anymore?
The complexity of understanding climate change impacts on food webs comes from the pileup of these sorts of questions across many levels of the food chain.”
Photo by Dr Jessica Evelyn at Jökulsárlón, Iceland.
“Scientists are still learning about individual species and collective ecosystem dynamics. We know what some of the larger implications of climate change are: warming, drought, natural disasters, but we cannot fully predict the effects of climate change across ecosystems…
As access to resources become more limited in different ways around the globe (water in areas of drought, nutrient-rich soil to grow food, dry and safe housing in flooded areas, cool zones in heatwaves), we have to adapt as things change and work together to share resources and expertise, migrate as needed and accommodate those who need to.”