Climate Change Impacts on SpecieS

The overarching aim of my group's research is to understanding current and future impacts of climate change on wild species, how responses of wild species in turn affect humans, and ultimately to inform conservation and climate change mitigation strategies such that sound, climate resilient policies can be developed even in the face of uncertain future climate change.  My scientific papers are very highly cited, having on average >400 citations per publication, and my total lifetime citations are > 59,000 by Google Scholar.

    In the past year, my group has documented rapid local evolution in Edith's checkerspot butterfly that effectively mitigated local warming trends by shifting the micro-climate experienced by early life-history stages.  We've also found that colonization processes that accompany climate-change-driven range shifts drive diversification of insect host-preference (a highly-heritable trait) that, in turn, leads to a temporary broadening of diet.  This mechanism is likely to facilitate range expansions in wild species, and explains global patterns in diet breadth between species that have, and have not, expanded their ranges polewards in response to recent climate change.

    My recent work with the United Nations has produced two major reports: an IPCC-IPBES Joint Report on Biodiversity and Climate Change (2021) and the IPCC 6th Assessment Report, WGII on Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation (2022), for which I was a Coordinating Lead Author for providing the global assessment of climate change impacts on terrestrial and freshwater species and ecosystems and their services.  I share in the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity awarded jointly to IPCC and IPBES in 2022. The conclusions of both reports were presented at the COP27 International Climate Change Conference (Egypt, November 2022) and provided the foundational scientific basis for the negotiations, particulary highlighting the scientific evidence for the need for strong and rapid global emissions reductions.

     In IPCC, I was instrumental in pulling together new evidence on the links between climate change, the ecology of pathogens in the wild, and changes in disease risk in humans.  We elevated these interconnections compared to past IPCC reports.  I and co-authors have also been instrumental in assessing the role of Nature-Based Solutions (NbS), concluding NbS is a win-win approach both to mitigate rising greenhouse gases and to help nature and humans adapt to on-going climate change.  A key contribution to this was development of a Cross-Chapter Box on NbS (Parmesan et al. 2022) which coordinated authors from all three IPCC Working Groups (from climate scientists to economists). We developed a multi-disciplinary decision-making framework to aid policy makers in how and when to apply NbS across a continuum of potential land uses, from urban to agricultural to protection of natural areas.

     I've also contributed directly to public awareness through many media interviews (e.g. the Guardian, New York Times, Témoignage Chrétien), public lectures (e.g. for the national Fête de la Science), and publication of outreach articles, e.g. Smith, Parmesan & Maslin (2021) Four ways to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises simultaneously. The Conversation: theconversation.com/four-ways-to-tackle-the-climate-and-biodiversity-crises-simultaneously-162631