The importance of how climate change impacts are forecast was centre stage at the official inaugural address of Professor Peter le Roux from the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences in August. Prof Le Roux expanded on this very topical issue during his inaugural address.

In his lecture, titled ‘Refining climate change impact forecasts by incorporating ecological complexity’, he emphasised that the effects of climate change are not only driven by temperature and rainfall. Focusing on the influence of temperature and rainfall, examining species in isolation, and working with coarse-scale datasets does not always offer an accurate picture of how species and their habitats change. As Prof Le Roux pointed out, including interactions between species and considering a broader range of climatic and environmental conditions, enhances our understanding of how ecosystems function and facilitates more accurate prediction of their response to climate change.

Prof Le Roux explained how accurate climate change impact forecasts are by highlighting the key relevance of ecosystems to human well-being, citing two important international research reports. The first, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2023) report, states that diverse, self-sustaining ecosystems with good biodiversity benefit people. This idea is echoed by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES, 2019) report, which asserts that “Nature is essential for human existence and good quality of life… Nature plays a critical role in providing food and feed, energy, medicines, genetic resources and various materials fundamental for people’s well-being.”

In future projects, he will expand his work by examining the grasslands of the Drakensberg, combining an extensive fine-scale vegetation survey with a large experiment that will manipulate temperature, grazing and soil nitrogen levels. As this is a region that people in southern Africa depend on to graze animals and for access to water, learning how climate change may affect these grassland ecosystems is important for both local communities and the broader region.

Prof Le Roux explained, "Ecology considers how things connect: species, environments, and human communities. It offers relevant insights into addressing the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. The field's complex data sets and varied research methods also help to create new analytical tools and teaching strategies that pull from many scientific fields.”

He concluded, “Grasping ecological complexity is key to better climate change predictions. My research examines how species interact simultaneously with small-scale environmental differences and multiple climate factors. This approach pushes scientific knowledge forward and gives useful insights into managing ecosystems as the climate changes.”