Potential impacts of climate change in dry coastal ecosystems of British Columbia

Climate change is impacting forest ecosystems. Climatic envelopes were developed for dry coastal ecosystems and 18 diagnostic plant species in southwestern British Columbia to project current and future suitable climate space. Future projections suggest a northward shift for ecosystem and species, with a reduction in ecosystem climate space and variable results for species climate space. Results suggest that ecosystem climatic envelopes represent cumulative biological complexity and that the ecosystem-level processes and functions cannot be allocated among the species within the plant community. A monitoring network was established to improve understanding and to detect changes in climate, soil, and vegetation relationships, and hence the distribution of ecosystems and species, over time. Baseline summaries detect climatic differences between monitored ecosystems. This climatic envelope research provides a foundation for theoretical development and the field study provides site-specific datasets to improve our understanding of forest ecosystems and our ability to manage land and resources.