What is BIGC?

The Biodiversity theme in relation to global change has ended in 2009. All information about this theme will stay available by this web site.

 

Objective
The aim of the Biodiversity theme in relation to global change, is to ultimately be able to predict what changes may occur as a result of global change. An important reason for starting the 1st phase concerns developments that have been launched internationally by establishing a Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

The theme of Biodiversity in relation to global change concerns the phenomenon of adaptation of organisms. In plants and animals, the central question is the timing of the phenology: the successive stages of development (flowering, incubation time)and the elapse of external factors such as climate (change). These factors can cause changes in habitat size (migration ability) and, as a result, can affect the chances for survival or extinction. In the short run, adaptation in micro-organisms can even lead to speciation. Is there sufficient variation to keep up with the changes? Do the interacting components of an ecosystem keep in phase (eg plants and pollinators, the plants or living herbivores and their parasitoids and predators)? New and interesting environmental developments may also arise from habitat expansion and new biotic interactions. And how can the impact of global change be distinguished from trends and fluctuations in the system caused by other environmental factors?

Research of interactions in food webs (ie study on the phenology of species from different trophic levels) is important in relation to the potential consequences of changes in climate. In this regard, changing functions of micro-organisms in the degradation process of organic matter by bacteria and fungi, the anaerobic degradation of organic matter by cooperating consortia of micro-organisms, the relationship between methane production and methane consumption (affecting the methane emission ) and finally the cycle of nitrogen (affecting eutrophication) are also being taken into consideration.

The aim of the theme is to finally be able to predict the changes that may occur as a result of global change.
The study of the patterns and processes of adaptive changes in the relatively short duration of this impulse in higher organisms can almost exclusively take place, using existing, long term studies. Moreover, it is important that the organisms from the long term studies have already - and by a wide range of disciplines - been described.

Duration
The theme "Biodiversity in relation to Global Change" was launched in 2001 and will run until 2009.

Financing
The Theme is funded by NWO-ALW (Division for Earth and Life Sciences).

Budget
M € 1.65