OVERVIEW

Global change is expected to be one of the main threats for biodiversity, posing one of the major challenges that humanity faces. Although over the Earth's history the environment has always changed with ecosystems and species diversity increasing and decreasing, the rapid changes we are facing prevent them to adapt or to move fast enough to keep pace with the changes, increasing biodiversity loss. In this course students learn about the patterns and processes affecting biological diversity of plants, and how plants respond to environmental change. The students will understand the effects of past and future changes and will acquire skill in the methods used to project the effect of change on the biodiversity. Therefore, the course allows students to get up-to-date with current knowledge and skills in biodiversity and global change research.

Course organization

The Plant Biodiversity and Global Change is a blended course (2 CFU) with theoretical and practical components.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course has the following learning goals: • notions about the main drivers of global change on plant biodiversity; • methodologies to predict the effect of future global change; • knowledge about the historical effects on plant distribution induced by climate change during the planet history; • deepening on plant adaptation to climate change; • focusing on the history of some plant species endemic to the SW Alps • understanding of the meaning and value of biodiversity.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

Specifically, the student will be able to:

• understand the processes that create and maintain diversity, and what are the main drivers of plant diversity
• analyse how each driver may affect plant biodiversity
• analyse how plant species have responded to past changes
• improve the understanding of the likely responses of biodiversity to future changes
• learn the predictive methods used to forecast the effect of future change

Having been equipped with such knowledge through the course, the students are encouraged to positively influence the future of plant biodiversity.

PREREQUISITES

Students are required to have a basic knowledge of botany and evolutionary biology.

TEACHING METHODS

Frontal and / or online lessons will be held in English in the presence of foreign students

Please refer to the AulaWeb platform for any specific updates to the teaching due to changes in the health and epidemiological situation.

Students who have valid certification of physical or learning disabilities on file with the University and who wish to discuss possible accommodations or other circumstances regarding lectures, coursework and exams, should speak both with the instructor and with Professor Sara Ferrando (sara.ferrando@unige.it), the Department’s disability liaison.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The course will deal with the following main arguments:

Main drivers of Global Change - This first part of the course focuses on the main drivers of the change in the Earth. In particular, it will deal with the process by which human activities transform the natural landscape (i.e., land use change) and with change in global and regional climate patterns (i.e., climate change). Land use change includes deforestation, agricultural land abandonment and over-exploitation. The course will take a brief look at the climate and environmental change and associated risks in the Mediterranean Basin (Report MedECC). Moreover, the course will analyse how both drivers may interact in affecting plant biodiversity. Eventually, the course will analyse how plants respond to global change by adapting to new conditions or changing their distribution.

Effects of past change on plants – In the second part the course will address the effects of past climate changes on plants diversity underlining how these events promoted extinction (e.g., the top five extinctions) or speciation. The course will focus mainly on the effect of Quaternary climatic oscillations on distributional patterns and demographic processes.

Projection of the effects of Global Change – This third part of the course will explain how to project the effects of global change on plants by using Species Distribution Models.

During the course plant species endemic to SW Alps will be used as examples.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

LESSONS

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy