Living with Climate Change

Global climate change presents a wide range of impacts and challenges for the organisms that live on this earth. This unit will explore the challenges and uncertainties climate change presents in terms of its potential impacts on living systems and organisms. Each week the course will cover a different aspect of climate change and its impact on plants, animals and ecosystems delivered by experts in their field. It will also focus on data literacy and interpretation using climate change biology as a theme. 

Anthropogenic global climate change presents a wide range of impacts and challenges for the organisms that live on this earth. This unit will explore the impact of climate change on organisms, in both terrestrial and aquatic systems. Students will develop the ability to process information from scientific papers, reports, the web & the media, in the field of climate change. This unit will encourage independent thinking and an analytical approach to these environmental issues using a series of lectures and discussion workshops.

By the end of this unit students will be able to:

• Theorise how a rapidly changing climate can affect individual organisms, populations and ecosystems and assess the possibilities and potentials of adaptation and mitigation.
• Critically appraise and discuss research literature regarding contemporary and controversial issues related to the impacts of climate change on living systems.
• Predict the impact of climate change on crop production, food security and ways of improving the climate resilience of crops.
• Reflect on the impact of climate change on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems  
• Critically appraise data and figures related to climate change biology 

Unit consists of series of weekly lectures and discussion workshops. Each week there will be a 1hr workshop to accompany the lectures.  

• Climate change at a global level: We will examine scientific evidence for anthropogenic induced climate change, climate system components/indicators, greenhouse gases and changing climate patterns of temperature and rainfall. We will look at IPPC reports and how the media portrays climate change research.  
• Impact of climate change on mammalian megafauna: Climate change will create stressful, extreme environments that threaten mammals with extinction. This part will explore current topics in conservation physiology and adapting management for a changing climate.  
• Impact of climate change on invertebrates: This section will cover current topics on how climate change drives invertebrate biodiversity declines and alters species interactions with consequences for ecosystem services.  
• Food security: We will examine the capability of agriculture to deal with climate change. We will discuss the challenges of climate change on food security, its impacts on the development, yield and quality of crops. We will discuss case studies on ways to increase crop resilience, including climate-proofing photosynthesis, in order to maintain crop production into the future.  

MCQ online quizzes: 5 quizzes with 3-5 questions in each quiz (i.e. each quiz is 4% of final mark). One released each week during course, one hour to complete once started and no repeat attempts.  

Exam: The exam will consist of five short essay questions from which the students will have to pick three to answer. Each question will consist of a figure and a short description of the study, followed by a short essay question.

Written feedback is given on exam questions, formative oral feedback in class during seminars via discussions and/or verbal feedback on presentations. Marks for quizzes are released each week, given DASS extension have been accounted for. 

Mostly primary research literature-based with articles and links provided on Canvas

• J.A. Newman, M. H.A.L. Henry, S. Hunt, Z. Gedalof, (2011) Climate Change Biology CAB International, Wallingford (UK) - Recommended