Ecological impacts of climate change in Japan: The importance of integrating local and international publications

Scientific papers published locally in many Asian countries are often inaccessible to researchers elsewhere due to language barriers or omission from international journal databases. This paper provides the first comprehensive review of the observed and projected impacts of climate change on plant and animal species in Japan, drawing extensively from both local and international publications. There were a number of long-term data sets on phenological and distributional changes covering more than five decades. Observed phenology records showed two characteristic trends in Japan; greater shifts of plant phenology in autumn relative to spring and delays in insect appearance dates in spring. Distribution records of insect and marine species indicated poleward range expansions of 18–140 km per decade. Future projections on phenology suggested varied responses between species and possible disruptions in ecosystem functions, while those on distributions indicated potential significant range reductions and changes in species assemblages and diversity. Some of these responses are not in line with the global trends while others show changes of greater magnitude than for other regions, which highlights the importance of region-specific climate change impact assessments. The research recommends that, to improve the evaluation of climate change impacts in countries where the common languages are not English, search efforts should be expanded to include locally available data and publications. This can be facilitated by using country-specific journal databases and increasing collaboration with local researchers.