Biodiversity and the Climate Crisis

The ‘twin crises’ of biodiversity and climate change are inextricably linked. Biodiversity, much like climate, is a fundamental characteristic of our Earth system and includes not only individual plant, animal, and microbial species, but also their ecological interactions at local, regional, and global scales. Climate change is exacerbating biodiversity loss, which further reduces ecosystem resilience and efficiency, jeopardizing the delivery of services essential to human well-being such as water purification, flood control, soil fertility, pollination and seed dispersal, temperature moderation, direct material and non-material benefits, carbon sequestration, control of non-indigenous species, and regulation of zoonotic diseases. In this course we will use a combination of lectures, student-led discussions, and research papers to explore these interconnections, focusing on food security, habitat types, tipping points, equity, and how biodiversity can both support and be affected by climate mitigation and adaption strategies.