Fitness for future: eLTER RI’s representation of climate and land use change

Optimisation of the spatial arrangement of distributed in-situ research infrastructures is often based on analyses of the transferability or representativity of its current site network. However, current conditions shift dramatically due to Global Change, posing fundamental challenges for the establishment of research infrastructures. Climate and land use change (LUC) are among the ecologically most relevant Global Change aspects. This study analysed how well the geographical distribution of the Integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI) represents these future changes at European scale. Therefore, we (i) derived ecologically meaningful metrics depicting both changes and identified associated hotspots, (ii) estimated eLTER RI’s fitness for these Global Change aspects, and (iii) compared the eLTER RI’s coverage of current environmental and socio-ecological gradients with its representation of climate change and LUC. Climate change and LUC were quantified as Pressures, expressing changes in biotemperature (BT Pressure), precipitation (P Pressures), seasonal water availability (SPEI Pressure) and Land Use (Land Use Change Pressure) relative to a location’s baseline conditions. Individual Pressures revealed consistent spatial patterns of different magnitude between the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The eLTER RI covers a wide variety of Pressures, but is spatially biased. BT and SPEI Pressure Hotspots are overrepresented by the eLTER RI, while P Pressure and Land Use Change Pressure Hotspots are underrepresented. Gaps in eLTER RI coverage manifested in both RCP scenarios in the Southern Iberian Peninsula, Poland, and Fennoscandia. Gap locations are assumed to be consistent under various potential futures and they largely overlap with gaps already identified for current conditions. Therefore, we recommend primarily targeting overlapping gaps, with an additional focus on underrepresented hotspot areas. Consequently, incorporating future conditions allows sharpening of the network design of RI’s in-situ facilities. This is a key step to transfer local measurements into continental-scale policy support. • Examining the fitness of a distributed research infrastructure (eLTER RI) for Global Change Science. • Novel statistical metrics depicting climate and land use change pressures on ecosystems. • Areas with large projected changes in precipitation are underrepresented in eLTER RI. • eLTER RI network development can be adapted to current and future environmental conditions simultaneously.