The workshop will consist of a 4-day meeting in which we discuss and refine scenarios of biodiversity change that have been prepared in advance by each participant. Each participant will be supplied with summaries of currently published IPCC scenarios of changes in climate, atmospheric composition, and land use for the next century. These scenarios include best-case, worst-case, and business-as-usual scenarios. We will also supply maps of natural vegetation composition under current climate and vegetation that is projected to be in equilibrium with a 2X CO2 world. This information will be sent to participants in late March prior to the meeting. We assume that there will be active discussion at the meeting about pitfalls and insights into how these scenarios can be made as credible as possible. We will ask each person to provide a written chapter by September following the meeting.

There will be two major sections to the workshop and the final product: (1) a summary of the major drivers of changes in biodiversity and (2) a biome-by-biome analysis of the probable changes in biodiversity and their consequences for ecosystem functioning. In dealing with consequences we will encourage participants to consider both ecological consequences for functioning of natural communities and economic and social consequences for human society. Detailed outlines of each chapter must be available to exchange among participants at the meeting. Final chapters must be completed by 1 October 1996. collapse