Climate change has long shaped the distribution, adaptation, and extinction of terrestrial life. Past climate variability drove large-scale migrations, evolutionary innovations, and ecosystem restructuring, while modern human activities have added unprecedented pressures to biodiversity and natural habitats. Understanding the intricate connection between climate and different life forms is essential for monitoring the ongoing biodiversity crisis and developing effective future conservation strategies.
This session explores climate-driven impacts on terrestrial life, including vegetation and faunal communities (including humans, other mammals, other vertebrates, and invertebrates), as well as the broader ecosystem dynamics from deep-time events to the present and into the future. We welcome multidisciplinary studies that integrate climate science, paleoecology, climate-vegetation-faunal interactions and ecosystem feedbacks, evolutionary biology, and conservation science, through proxy-based and modeling approaches. Topics of interest include,
- Extinctions: drivers and ecological impacts
- Biodiversity changes and emerging trends
- Vegetation and biome dynamics
- Vegetation–climate feedbacks
- Climate- and human-induced habitat degradation
- Adaptation strategies of species and ecosystems
- Insights from advanced observations and climate-ecosystem models
By bridging past, present, and future perspective, this session aims to forge collaborations and cross-disciplinary dialogue on climate–life interactions.