Response of past and present Mediterranean ecosystems to environmental change

Abstract

Mediterranean ecosystems contain some of the highest levels of plant diversity of any region on Earth and are amongst those believed to be most at risk from the consequences of global warming. Yet such ecosystems are not static and have responded to environmental changes at a variety of scales and from a variety of causes, particularly climatic and anthropogenic. The purpose of this paper is to review recent research on environmental change and ecosystem response. Long-term records are available to analyse changes over glacial-interglacial cycles, while high resolution records show the sensitivity and coupling of Mediterranean, North Atlantic and Greenland records. For the Holocene, there is continued debate about the relative impact of anthropogenic activity, but there is also increasing recognition that mediterranean-type ecosystems should not be regarded as fragile, degraded landscapes, but are disturbance- adapted. Nevertheless, conservation measures face increasing challenges from contemporary climate change and human pressures. Some insights into the identification of refugial areas, either in glacial times or for present-day conservation purposes, come from molecular Biogeographical studies of past faunal and floral distribution.