LifeTimes, Winter 2010

IPERS is prefunded, which means that while members are working they contribute to IPERS for their own future retirements. Contributions from employees and their employers, plus investment income, must be enough to cover the costs of future benefits that IPERS promises to pay.

Iowa Public Employees Retirement System Strategic Plan, 2012-2017

This report outlines the strategic plan for Iowa Public Employees Retirement System, goals and mission.

Comprehensive annual financial report of the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 1999

Report on the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS) for the year ended June 30, 1999

Comprehensive annual financial report of the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 2000

Report on the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS) for the year ended June 30, 2000

Comprehensive annual financial report of the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 2001

Report on the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS) for the year ended June 30, 2001

Comprehensive annual financial report of the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 2002

Report on the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS) for the year ended June 30, 2002

Comprehensive annual financial report of the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 2003

Report on the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS) for the year ended June 30, 2003

Comprehensive annual financial report of the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 2004

Report on the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS) for the year ended June 30, 2004

Comprehensive annual financial report of the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 2005

Report on the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS) for the year ended June 30, 2005

Comprehensive annual financial report of the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 2006

Report on the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS) for the year ended June 30, 2006

Comprehensive annual financial report of the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 2008

Report on the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS) for the year ended June 30, 2008

Comprehensive annual financial report of the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 2011

Report on the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS) for the year ended June 30, 2011

Comprehensive annual financial report of the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 2012

Report on the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS) for the year ended June 30, 2012

Predicting future distributions of mountain plants under climate change: does dispersal capacity matter?

Many studies have investigated the impacts that climate change could potentially have on the distribution of plant species, but few have attempted to constrain projections through plant dispersal limitations. Instead, most studies published so far have been using the simplification of considering dispersal as either unlimited or null. However, depending on a species' dispersal capacity, landscape fragmentation, and the rate of climatic change, these assumptions can lead to serious over- or underestimation of a species' future distribution. To quantify the discrepancies between unlimited, realistic, and no dispersal scenarios, we carried out projections of future distribution over the 21st century for 287 mountain plant species in a study area of the Western Swiss Alps. For each species, simulations were run for four dispersal scenarios (unlimited dispersal, no dispersal, realistic dispersal and realistic dispersal with long-distance dispersal events) and under four climate change scenarios. Although simulations accounting for realistic dispersal limitations did significantly differ from those considering dispersal as unlimited or null in terms of projected future distribution, using the unlimited dispersal simplification nevertheless provided good approximations for species extinctions under more moderate climate change scenarios. Overall, simulations accounting for dispersal limitations produced, for our mountainous study area, results that were significantly closer to unlimited dispersal than to no dispersal. Finally, analyzing the temporal pattern of species extinctions over the entire 21st century showed that, due to the possibility of a large number of species shifting their distribution to higher elevation, important species extinctions for our study area might not occur before the 2080-2100 time periods.