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  • Perspective
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Towards more predictive and interdisciplinary climate change ecosystem experiments

Nature Climate Change volume 9, pages 809–816 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Despite great advances, experiments concerning the response of ecosystems to climate change still face considerable challenges, including the high complexity of climate change in terms of environmental variables, constraints in the number and amplitude of climate treatment levels, and the limited scope of responses and interactions covered. Drawing on the expertise of researchers from a variety of disciplines, this Perspective outlines how computational and technological advances can help in designing experiments that can contribute to overcoming these challenges, and also outlines a first application of such an experimental design.

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Fig. 1: Overview of the two climate change gradient designs in the UHasselt Ecotron experiment.
Fig. 2: Impact pathway showing the reasoning behind the integration of scientific disciplines in the UHasselt Ecotron experiment.
Fig. 3: Measured variables in the UHasselt Ecotron experiment and links with ecosystem functions, services and values.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Flemish government (through Hercules Stichting big infrastructure and the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders project G0H4117N) and LSM (Limburg Sterk Merk, project 271) for providing funds to build the UHasselt Ecotron; Hasselt University for both funding and policy support (project BOF12BR01 and Methusalem project 08M03VGRJ); and the ecotron research committee for comments on the experimental design. We also thank Regional Landscape Kempen and Maasland for its collaboration and support. N.W., S.L., A.N. and I.V. are funded by Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Biology, Centre for Environmental Sciences, Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium

    Francois Rineau, Natalie Beenaerts, Natascha Arnauts, Jan Clerinx, Wouter Reyns, Sofie Thijs & Jaco Vangronsveld

  2. Environmental Economics, Centre for Environmental Sciences, Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium

    Robert Malina, Sebastien Lizin, Michele Moretti, Anne Nobel & Nele Witters

  3. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Richard D. Bardgett & David Johnson

  4. Department of Ecological Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

    Matty P. Berg, Jacintha Ellers & Oscar Franken

  5. Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Science, Community and Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen University, Groningen, the Netherlands

    Matty P. Berg

  6. Ecosystem Management Research Group (ECOBE), University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

    Annelies Boerema, Patrick Meire, Dominique Meremans & Jan Staes

  7. Data Science Institute, Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium

    Liesbeth Bruckers & Francesca Solmi

  8. Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Edouard L. Davin, Lukas Gudmundsson, Sonia I. Seneviratne, Wim Thiery & Jakob Zscheischler

  9. Plants and Ecosystems (PLECO), University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Belgium

    Hans J. De Boeck, Ivan A. Janssens, Ivan Nijs & Erik Verbruggen

  10. Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO), Brussels, Belgium

    Tom De Dobbelaer, Ann Milbau & Wouter Van Landuyt

  11. Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK

    Marta Dondini & Pete Smith

  12. Namur Institute of Complex Systems, and the Institute of Life, Earth, and Environment, Research Unit in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, Namur University, Namur, Belgium

    Frederik De Laender & Wouter Reyns

  13. Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Lucy Gilbert

  14. Gembloux Agrobio Tech, TERRA, University of Liege, Gembloux, Belgium

    Bernard Longdoz

  15. Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

    Michele Moretti

  16. Faculty of Sciences, Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium

    Iuliu Sorin Pop & Jochen Schuetz

  17. Institute for Bio- and Geosciences IBG-3, Forschungszentrum Juelich, Juelich, Germany

    Thomas Puetz

  18. Ecotron Européen de Montpellier, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Montferrier-sur-Lez, France

    Jacques Roy

  19. Department of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

    Wim Thiery & Inne Vanderkelen

  20. Climate and Environmental Physics, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Jakob Zscheischler

  21. Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Jakob Zscheischler

  22. Department of Plant Physiology, Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland

    Jaco Vangronsveld

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  1. Francois Rineau
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Contributions

F.R. and R.M. took the lead in writing the manuscript and received input from all co-authors. The initial conceptualization of this manuscript was discussed during a consortium meeting. All authors proofread and provided their input to different draft versions and gave their final approval for submission.

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Correspondence to Francois Rineau.

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Rineau, F., Malina, R., Beenaerts, N. et al. Towards more predictive and interdisciplinary climate change ecosystem experiments. Nat. Clim. Chang. 9, 809–816 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0609-3

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