Micromics

Climate change has been identified as one of the most important human-induced global drivers of biodiversity loss. Importantly, climate models predict increases in frequency, intensity, and extent of climate-related disturbances in the next few decades. Understanding and forecasting the effects of climate change on biodiversity are among the major challenges of our time. Microclimate conditions and eco-evolutionary processes manifesting at fine spatial scales are key to understanding how organisms respond to changing environmental conditions, yet, they are frequently neglected when studying biotic responses to global change. The MICROMICS project aims to study the importance of microclimate as a driver of fine-scale adaptive evolution, dispersal, climate change exposure and sensitivity, and, ultimately, range-wide species dynamics. The project will capitalize on recent progress in microclimate ecology and genomics to force a scientific breakthrough in ecological research on the impact of climate change on biodiversity.

Researchers: Christophe Metsu, Lore Hostens

Funding: KU Leuven C1 project