Vulnerabilities

Birds

For 13 bird species the changes in first arrival dates in the Czech Republic over previous decades were studied. During the period 1978-2010, all species advanced their arrivals by on average 0.35 days per year. There was no difference between the mean shift for short-distance migrants and long-distance migrants (2).

Plant species

In the medium term, temperate-zone vegetation can profit by 10 to 15% from the prolonged vegetation period, but can suffer by 10 to 15% because of the loss of water. The anticipated further increase in average temperatures will lead to the expected increase in the sum of active and effective temperatures and number of summer and tropical days, while the number of frost and ice days will decrease. The frost-free period will be prolonged by 15–20 days in the medium term and the beginning of the vegetation period at lower altitudes will move to the beginning of March and the end will shift to the end of October (1).

More obvious changes can be expected at lower altitudes, where the length of the vegetation period could be prolonged by as much as 20 days, permitting earlier emergence of seedlings and onset of further phenophases, while the time of ripening or harvesting could move forward by as much as 10 days. However, acceleration of vegetation in the spring is accompanied by the danger of damage to plants by late frosts. The temperature increase should create sufficient temperature security for growing thermophilic species; nonetheless, extremely high temperatures can increase the danger of occurrence of temperature stress (1).

Approximately one tenth of monitored plant species will be in danger of extinction by the end of the century, while one fifth of plant species can rapidly and effectively adapt to a changing climate (1).

Climate change will enable the spreading of invasive non-indigenous species, i.e. species whose intentional planting or inadvertent introduction and subsequent spreading endangers biological diversity, biotopes or even entire ecosystems. Consequently even successful species will be forced to face so-far unknown competitors, natural enemies, parasites and organisms transmitting diseases (1).

For the birch, flowering has advanced, and the time of flowering has shortened, by several days per decade in the period 1991-2019 (3).

Adaptation strategies

Current results indicate that natural and artificial ecosystems with high species diversity and healthy ecosystems will most probably be capable of adapting to on-going and anticipated climate change. … In connection with the expected shift of the areas of occurrence of many species of flora and fauna, it is necessary to extend the existing system of specially protected territories, including the EC Natura 2000 system of protected areas, to encompass as many bioclimatically different areas as possible. In the absence of care for the landscape even outside of specially protected areas and without monitoring of selected components of biodiversity, many species of flora and fauna will not be capable of reacting to climate change in time (1).

Rescue programmes and programmes of care for specially protected species should be implemented. Suitable conditions should be created for their further existence, damage to highly and critically endangered specially protected species of fauna should be prevented, and the adaptation abilities of ecosystems and species to increasing fragmentation of the landscape should be improved. The introduction of populations of invasive speciesshould be prevented (1).

References

The references below are cited in full in a separate map 'References'. Please click here if you are looking for the full references for the Czech Republic.

1. Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic (2009)
2. Kolářová et al. (2017)
3. Hájková et al. (2020)