The Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies hosted a colloquium on “Climate Change and Species Interactions: Ways Forward” The purpose of the workshop was to facilitate the rapidly growing understanding of the links between climate change and biotic interactions and to help guide future research and application. As the climate continues to change, three major challenges for ecologists are to predict: (1) how individual species will change in abundance and distribution, (2) how biotic communities will change in structure and function; and (3) the consequences of climate-induced changes in species and communities for ecosystem functioning. The workshop included short talks and discussion sections designed to explore those questions and what is known and paths towards answering what is unknown on how climate change will affect earth’s ecosystems and ultimately society. ZIJ presented an invited talk on “The effects of climate change on oceanic microbial communities: a case study of marine cyanobacteria.”
