There are numerous research processes to alleviate the effects of climate change on the planet. One of them (which we are going to talk about today) is a network of two hundred artificial ponds that serve to better understand how ecosystems around the world work and see how they respond to the effects of climate change.
Do you want to know how this research works and what results are obtained?
Artificial ponds
The artificial ponds are scattered throughout the Iberian Peninsula and have different well-differentiated climates to know all the responses to the effects of climate change.
The experiment is called Iberian Ponds and it consists of six facilities located in different places in Spain and Portugal. In each place 32 ponds or artificial ponds are installed, separated by about 4 meters apart.
With the ponds you can recreate the situations of pressure, temperature, winds, etc. Simulating natural systems. In this way, models can be developed to understand the response of natural communities, both in the present and in the future, to environmental changes caused by climate change.
Each natural ecosystem has ecosystem services. These services are used to absorb CO2, provide wood or other natural resources. Climate change attacks the quantity and quality of these ecosystem services, causing damage to the roots of ecosystems. For example, reducing the water available to plants, increasing temperatures, destroying aquatic ecosystems or melting the polar shelves.
Scientific challenge
These facilities feature an intermediate laboratory between an aquarium and an experiment in natural conditions. Therefore, they provide valuable and relevant information on the functioning of all the trophic networks of ecosystems and determine the critical point of each one of them.
These ponds are a great scientific challenge, since it is complex to find a model that is capable of studying the structure, composition and dynamics of ecosystems in a globalized way. The more information one has about it, the easier it will be to be able to model the prediction of the future, something that until now has been more difficult due to the overview of ecosystems.
It is no longer a matter of innovating from the inclusion of data previously collected in computer programs, but rather the development of a complete experimental project in which the collection of basic information is contemplated.
Experimental ponds of the peninsula
The artificial ponds, tiny prefabricated wetlands, are located in six areas of the Iberian Peninsula with different climatic environments: two semi-arid (Toledo and Murcia), two alpine (Madrid and Jaca), one Mediterranean (Évora, Portugal) and one temperate (Oporto, Portugal).
Each of them houses 1.000 liters of water and 100 kilos of sediment both from the area where the experiment is carried out.
In order to know the response of the ecosystems to climate change, the effects of it in each pond are simulated by manipulating environmental factors such as temperature, water level, etc. This will allow in the future to characterize the impacts on food webs.
There are repercussions at the level of bacteria and viruses, which makes predicting the future more complex. These impacts can have negative consequences on the carbon cycle and affect more dynamics that control global change.
“Iberian Ponds”, a work of slow trajectory, will develop experiments in different climatic scenarios: in a third of the ponds the tropicalization of the environment will be simulated by increasing the water and temperature, in another third the desertification will be simulated by raising the water temperature in the last third, it is left unadulterated, governed only by current climatic conditions.
All of these simulated scenarios are possible consequences of climate change on the environment.
As you can see, there are many experiments and research that are dedicated to knowing the impacts of climate change on our ecosystems since it is something of vital importance for the survival of millions of species around the world.