In the framework of this project the ISAC-CNR research unit (RU) will collect and provide to the other RUs the historical climate data and future projections, created with numerical global climate models, which are needed for climate change impact studies on ecosystems. In addition ISAC-CNR will develop empirical mathematical models for the impact of climate variability on animal population dynamics. In particular:
1) After a preliminary selection of the climate variables which are of potential interest for modelling the impacts of climate variability on animal populations, ISAC-CNR will provide to the other RUs the climate simulations which have already been performed with the global, state-of-the-art, climate model EC-Earth. In particular, in addition to an historical control run (1850-2005), three future projections for the years 2006-2100 are available, for different emission scenarios of greenhouse gases, aerosols and land-use. ISAC-CNR will extract from the available model data the climate variables which are necessary for modelling climate variability impacts on animal populations in the regions of interest, computing derived variables such as seasonal extremes of precipitation and temperature. A database will be created on machines located at ISAC-CNR, containing all climate data needed by the other RUs of the project. The statistical properties of the data in the historical period will be compared with available observations from in-situ measurement stations, allowing to assess model biases and the applicability of the model data for ecological modelling. In addition ISAC-CNR will identify and select public archives containing model, observational and reanalysis data, which are suitable for the modelling activities of the project and provide sufficient spatial and temporal resolution. These data will be copied to a local archive and will be useful for the development and the validation of the population dynamics models created in the framework of this project.
2) Starting from the large-scale scenarios produced with the EC-Earth model, ISAC-CNR will create synthetic sCenarios with high spatial resolution for some climate variables of interest, using stochastic downscaling methods. These methods will allow to create ensembles of high-resolution realizations which will allow to evaluate future climate variability at small scales and uncertainty associated with the scenarios. The application of these ensembles of high-resolution scenarios to empirical models of population dynamics (see item 3), will allow to evaluate the impacts of climate change on animal populations also in areas with a complex orography, such as in the Alps. In addition these techniques will be applied to historical observational and reanalysis data with finite resolution grids, allowing to obtain high-resolution data, suitable for developing ecological models, also in areas where observational data from in-situ measurement stations are not available.
3) Empirical models of population dynamics for homeothermic Vertebrate target species will be implemented with time series of data collected by the partners of the other RUs, in order to detect key factors driving observed fluctuations, in particular density dependence (both direct and delayed), and the impact of climate variability, resource availability and habitat modifications. Once the best models for the study species have been selected, it will be possible to put in the expected range of values of the climatic variables for the climate change scenarios (produced with the EC-Earth model), and to estimate the possible evolution of the species.