Predicting the Impact of Climate Change on Butterfly and Woody Vegetation Species Richness in Israel

This project combined fieldwork to record woody vegetation and butterfly species richness at various sites in Israel, with construction of high spatial resolution climate models. Climate models created for the project included:

• Average monthly and yearly temperature
• Average monthly and yearly minimum relative humidity and
• Average monthly and yearly precipitation.

The study showed that changes in precipitation would not be homogenous across Israel, and that a decline of 8% in precipitation will cause a decline of about 5% in the butterfly population and a decline of 2% in woody vegetation species richness.

Project report (.doc download) clmt-chng-abst

Presentation (link –Estimating Influence of Predicted Climate Changes on Species Richness of Woody Vegetation and Butterflies in Israel. ) – Presented at the Mediterranean Biodiversity Conference  (Oct-2008, Aqaba, Jordan) (English).