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| Schematic demonstrating how metapopulation dynamics can lead to range limits. A metapopulation approach to range dynamics hypothesizes that range limits are determined by colonization (c, blue lines) and extinction (m, red lines) probabilities as they vary along an environmental gradient 9. a, c and m for Acer saccharum vary with temperature, resulting in a latitudinal gradient. More generally, we describe c and m as functions of the environment: c(E) and m(E). The theory predicts that the species will be present at equilibrium (shaded region) where c(E) > m(E); therefore the temperature at which c(E) = m(E) determines the latitude of the range limits. b, A simulated 2.5 °C of warming produces a northward shift in the suitable range (grey and blue shading). However, over short time scales, slow extinction probabilities will cause the species to persist where m(E) > c(E) (red shading) until all occupied populations have gone extinct. A similar lag in colonization ability will result in the species being absent in many areas where c(E) > m(E) (blue shading). Thin lines show 90% credible intervals around mean c and m probabilities.
Source publication
Global climate change is already having an impact on species ranges. For species with slow demography and limited dispersal, such as trees, lags between climate change and distribution shifts are likely to increase in the future. Such lags can be of critical importance to management and biodiversity of forests, because they can result in ‘extinctio...
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Citations
... Behind the fundamental thermal niche, deaths exceed births, known as 'extinction debt' (Tilman et al., 1994). Ahead of the niche, due to dispersal limitation, the lag between the location of the niche and the density of the population increases (Hurford et al., 2019), as does the 'colonization credit', the future potential range of the species (Talluto et al., 2017) (Figure 1a). For example, extinction debt and colonization credit are widespread and affect bird species in about half of the area of the entire US (Haddou et al., 2022). ...
Climate change threatens many species by a poleward/upward movement of their thermal niche. While we know that faster movement has stronger impacts, little is known on how fluctuations of niche movement affect population outcomes. Environmental fluctuations often affect populations negatively, but theory and experiments have revealed some positive effects. We study how fluctuations around the average speed of the niche impact a species' persistence, abundance and realized niche width under climate change. We find that the outcome depends on how fluctuations manifest and what the relative time scale of population growth and climate fluctuations are. When populations are close to extinction with the average speed, fluctuations around this average accelerate population decline. However, populations not yet close to extinction can increase in abundance and/or realized niche width from such fluctuations. Long‐lived species increase more when their niche size remains constant, short‐lived species increase more when their niche size varies.
... La combinaison de données antérieures et actuelles peut être utilisée pour paramétrer des modèles mécanistes pour évaluer les dynamiques actuelles et futures de l'écosystème selon différents scénarios de paysage (May et al. 2013 ;Blanchard et al. 2020). De telles données peuvent également être utilisées pour ajuster les modèles de distribution des espèces, afin d'évaluer et de prédire des retards dans les extinctions et les colonisations d'espèces après des changements environnementaux (Blois et al. 2013 ;Talluto et al. 2017). ...
Les paysages qui nous entourent sont un héritage du passé. L’écologie historique nous invite à remonter le temps pour mieux les interpréter, pour comprendre la biodiversité et le fonctionnement actuels des écosystèmes qui les constituent et, finalement, anticiper leurs trajectoires à venir.Écologie historique propose une synthèse complète et actualisée de ce champ interdisciplinaire qu’est l’écologie historique. Après avoir analysé l’importance du temps et de ses échelles en écologie ainsi que la délicate tâche d’inférer des trajectoires dynamiques passées à partir d’observations actuelles, cet ouvrage présente une approche critique des principales méthodes utilisées, comme le suivi de placettes permanentes, l’analyse des cartes anciennes, la photographie répétée, la télédétection, l’analyse des sols, l’étude des charbons de bois et d’autres indicateurs botaniques.Une série d’études empiriques effectuées dans différents biomes vient illustrer le rôle de l’écologie historique dans la compréhension des socio-écosystèmes actuels, nous faisant voyager à travers les forêts continentales et insulaires, les vergers, les toundras et les dunes littorales.
... If species' cold-edge range limits are strongly constrained by soil, then potential range shifts and biodiversity change under climate change would be much smaller than is often assumed. Recent studies have found that ongoing plant migration lags behind climate warming [15][16][17][18], a pattern potentially explained by nonclimatic constraints. As such, it is imperative to evaluate whether and how soil and other non-climate factors influence plant distributions along climatic gradients. ...
Projections of spatial biodiversity dynamics under climate warming are often based on models including only climate variables, and when non-climatic factors (e.g. soil) are included, data are often at much coarser spatial resolutions than those experienced by plants. Field studies along elevation gradients permit the gathering of detailed soil data, while still covering a wide climatic gradient. Here, an intensive field survey of four spring forest herbs along an elevation gradient showed that soil properties had substantial impacts on the occurrence/abundance of all species, and that soil effects were more pronounced at higher elevations. For Trillium erectum and Claytonia caroliniana, very infrequent occurrences at high elevation were strongly associated with rare microsites with high pH or nutrients. In a seven-year transplant experiment with T. erectum, we found that individuals grew to much smaller sizes at high than low elevation, suggesting that environmental factors rather than dispersal limitation constrain the species' upper range limit, despite substantial warming in recent decades. Our study demonstrates that soil factors interact strongly with climate to determine plant range limits along climatic gradients. Unsuitable soils for plants at high elevations or latitudes may represent an important constraint on future plant migration and biodiversity change.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ecological novelty and planetary stewardship: biodiversity dynamics in a transforming biosphere’.
... Negative CTI changes correspond to an increase in cold-affinity species (i.e., borealization) and/or a decrease of warm-affinity species (i.e., detropicalization). The reason why tropicalization may prevail (or not) over deborealization has been recently debated [32][33][34] . Assuming an ecophysiological equilibrium between habitat suitability and the occurrence of species, we can expect that species track temperature change equally 33,35 , hence tropicalization would be similar to deborealization. ...
... Assuming an ecophysiological equilibrium between habitat suitability and the occurrence of species, we can expect that species track temperature change equally 33,35 , hence tropicalization would be similar to deborealization. However, in species with slow demography and limited dispersal, lags between climate change and distribution shifts can result in 'extinction debts' 36 , where populations temporarily persist under unsuitable conditions, and 'colonization credits', where suitable locations are not occupied 32 . This latter pattern has been observed for instance in some studies on trees 32 and demersal fish 33 , whilst other studies found equally responsive shifts at both range boundaries in marine ectotherms 35 , and prevalence of the tropicalization in demersal fish 15 . ...
... However, in species with slow demography and limited dispersal, lags between climate change and distribution shifts can result in 'extinction debts' 36 , where populations temporarily persist under unsuitable conditions, and 'colonization credits', where suitable locations are not occupied 32 . This latter pattern has been observed for instance in some studies on trees 32 and demersal fish 33 , whilst other studies found equally responsive shifts at both range boundaries in marine ectotherms 35 , and prevalence of the tropicalization in demersal fish 15 . The prevalence in tropicalization vs deborealization might depend on biological traits of the community (size, dispersal capacity), phenotypic plasticity enabling populations to remain in sub-optimal habitats 37 , or due to and seascape aspects (e.g., marine geomorphological features) limiting species dispersal and ocean connectivity. ...
Ocean warming and acidification, decreases in dissolved oxygen concentrations, and changes in primary production are causing an unprecedented global redistribution of marine life. The identification of underlying ecological processes underpinning marine species turnover, particularly the prevalence of increases of warm-water species or declines of cold-water species, has been recently debated in the context of ocean warming. Here, we track changes in the mean thermal affinity of marine communities across European seas by calculating the Community Temperature Index for 65 biodiversity time series collected over four decades and containing 1,817 species from different communities (zooplankton, coastal benthos, pelagic and demersal invertebrates and fish). We show that most communities and sites have clearly responded to ongoing ocean warming via abundance increases of warm-water species (tropicalization, 54%) and decreases of cold-water species (deborealization, 18%). Tropicalization dominated Atlantic sites compared to semi-enclosed basins such as the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas, probably due to physical barrier constraints to connectivity and species colonization. Semi-enclosed basins appeared to be particularly vulnerable to ocean warming, experiencing the fastest rates of warming and biodiversity loss through deborealization.
... Importantly, colonization and extinction rates are heterogeneous in space, shifting the focus of the model from the regional scale to the local scale. Other processes of interest can also be easily incorporated; for example, competition with other species can be incorporated in the extinction term 114 , dispersal rates can influence colonization 115 , and habitat/niche dimensions can be made a part of the colonization and extinction functions 116,117 . ...
Rivers are an important component of the global carbon cycle and contribute to atmospheric carbon exchange disproportionately to their total surface area. Largely, this is because rivers efficiently mobilize, transport and metabolize terrigenous organic matter (OM). Notably, our knowledge about the magnitude of globally relevant carbon fluxes strongly contrasts with our lack of understanding of the underlying processes that transform OM. Ultimately, OM processing en route to the oceans results from a diverse assemblage of consumers interacting with an equally diverse pool of resources in a spatially complex network of heterogeneous riverine habitats. To understand this interaction between consumers and OM, we must therefore account for spatial configuration, connectivity, and landscape context at scales ranging from local ecosystems to entire networks. Building such a spatially explicit framework of fluvial OM processing across scales may also help us to better predict poorly understood anthropogenic impacts on fluvial carbon cycling, for instance human-induced fragmentation and changes to flow regimes, including intermittence. Moreover, this framework must also account for the current unprecedented human-driven loss of biodiversity. This loss is at least partly due to mechanisms operating across spatial scales, such as interference with migration and habitat homogenization, and comes with largely unknown functional consequences. We advocate here for a comprehensive framework for fluvial networks connecting two spatially aware but disparate lines of research on (i) riverine metacommunities and biodiversity, and (ii) the biogeochemistry of rivers and their contribution to the global carbon cycle. We argue for a research agenda focusing on the regional scale—that is, of the entire river network—to enable a deeper mechanistic understanding of naturally arising biodiversity–ecosystem functioning coupling as a major driver of biogeochemically relevant riverine carbon fluxes.
... Differences in plant species richness and composition between post-agricultural secondary forests and both mature forests and forests regenerating after natural disturbance may persist for decades, or even centuries (Boucher et al., 2001;Flinn & Marks, 2007;De Frenne et al., 2011;Naaf & Kolk, 2015;Muscarella et al., 2016;Kolk et al., 2017;Rozendaal et al., 2019;Brubaker & Cosentino, 2021;Brunet et al., 2021). This 'colonisation credit' (Talluto et al., 2017) may be a major barrier to post-agricultural forests achieving their full potential in ecological integrity, ecosystem functioning and resilience (Conti & Díaz, 2013;Gamfeldt et al., 2013;van der Plas et al., 2016;Ratcliffe et al., 2017). Understanding the processes which constrain species accumulation is an important step in identifying management interventions to enhance the biodiversity gain and ecosystem function of post-agricultural forest successions (Bartha et al., 2003;Török & Helm, 2017). ...
... An extensive body of research exists demonstrating the power of functional traits as indicators of plant species responses to pressures relevant to ecological succession (such as competition for light, below-ground resource limitation, disturbance, herbivory and dispersal limitation) (Grime, 2001;Wright et al., 2005;Mason et al., 2010;Perez-Harguindeguy et al., 2013;Tamme et al., 2014;Lai et al., 2020). However, trait-based evidence for processes driving post-agricultural woody successions is primarily derived from spacefor-time chronosequences (hence potentially confounded with environmental heterogeneity) and usually from a single, geographically restricted study area (Ferguson et al., 2003;Campetella et al., 2011;Mason, Carswell, et al., 2011;Lohbeck et al., 2013;Muscarella et al., 2016). ...
... Our results emphasise the need for caution in using estimated dispersal distances to model vegetation dynamics. Biotic dispersal has a large positive effect in the model we used to estimate dispersal distance (Tamme et al., 2014). Dependence on biotic dispersal was, on average, an important limiting factor in species establishment at our study sites. ...
Question
Natural reforestation is an important component of climate mitigation and adaptation, but the ecological processes promoting or constraining it are poorly understood. In this study we employ a stand reconstruction approach (which uses ages of extant trees to estimate year of establishment for each individual tree) to test for general trait‐based effects on tree species arrival order in post‐agricultural forest successions.
Location
Naturally reforesting post‐agricultural landscapes throughout New Zealand.
Methods
Ages were obtained for 2434 individuals spanning 30 tree species across a nationwide network of 128 plots in 14 naturally reforesting post‐agricultural sites. These ages were used to calculate individual‐level arrival times (relative to the oldest individual in each plot). We estimated species‐level arrival times by fitting linear mixed‐effects (LME) regressions (with species identity as the fixed effect, and plots nested within sites as the random effects) to individual arrival time data. We used back‐casting (where arrival time data are used to document individual‐level presence in plots through time) to track annual changes in species abundance and community‐weighted mean (CWM) trait values.
We used standardised major axis (SMA) regressions to examine the effect of traits related to resource use strategy, herbivory avoidance, seed dispersal and disturbance response on species‐level arrival times. We used LME regressions to test for changes in CWM trait values with stand age.
Results
The earliest‐arriving species had traits associated with herbivory avoidance, were abiotically dispersed and had short predicted dispersal distances. There was no evidence that traits linked to resource use strategy or disturbance response affected species arrival times. Every significant species‐level relationship was recovered in community‐level LME analyses.
Conclusions
Our findings suggest that mammalian herbivore control and enhancement of biotic (bird) seed dispersal may be key management interventions in realising the full climate mitigation and adaptation potential of natural reforestation in post‐agricultural landscapes.
... Mapping of individual tree species at large scale creates economic opportunities, but inevitably also involves a danger in relation to over-exploitation of local resources. This is in particular problematic for areas where local people strongly depend on the resources provided by trees, which is the case for baobabs in West Africa 14,15,19,36,37 . Here, a better understanding of where to conserve and invest in long-term sustainable use can support the development of rural communities and promote value chains 28,36,37,38 . ...
The iconic baobab tree ( Adansonia digitata L. ) is an integral part of rural livelihoods throughout the African continent. However, the combined effects of climate change and increasing global demand for baobab products are currently exerting pressure on the sustainable utilization of these resources. Here we employ sub-meter resolution satellite imagery to identify the presence of nearly 2.8 (± 27.1%) million baobab trees in the Sahel, a dryland region of 1.5 million km ² . This achievement is considered an essential step towards an improved management and monitoring system of valuable woody species. Using Senegal as a case country, we find that 94% of rural households have at least one baobab tree in their immediate surrounding, and that the abundance of baobabs is associated with a higher likelihood of people consuming a highly nutritious food group: dark green leafy vegetables. The generated database showcases the feasibility of mapping the location of single tree species at a sub-continental scale, providing vital information in times where human mismanagement and climate change cause the extinction of numerous tree species.
... Potential plant migration could be strongly impacted if sites that become climatically suitable have unsuitable soil (Lafleur et al., 2010;Brown & Vellend, 2014;Carteron et al., 2020;Greiser et al., 2020;Benning & Moeller, 2021a,b). If so, apparent migration lags (Fei et al., 2017;Talluto et al., 2017;Boisvert-Marsh et al., 2019) might be due in part to overestimates of how far suitable growing conditions have shifted. Potential future species richness in poleward sites might also be overestimated by climate-only models. ...
... Specifically, current soils in tundra and boreal forests, which are generally shallow, acidic and even frozen (permafrost) are likely to be unsuitable for many southern plant species (Lafleur et al., 2010). Our results also indicate that the observed migration lags in some plant species under climate change (Fei et al., 2017;Talluto et al., 2017;Rumpf et al., 2018;Boisvert-Marsh et al., 2019;Rubenstein et al., 2023) might be caused, at least partly, by unsuitable soil environments beyond leading range edges. While climate change and associated vegetation responses might alter some soil properties to make them more suitable for 'southern' species in the coming decades (e.g. the melting permafrost at tundra or reduced acidity following conifer-to-hardwood transitions), other soil properties, such as depth and texture, are likely to represent persistent barriers over much longer time frames. ...
Many plant species are predicted to migrate poleward in response to climate change. Species distribution models (SDMs) have been widely used to quantify future suitable habitats, but they often neglect soil properties, despite the importance of soil for plant fitness. As soil properties often change along latitudinal gradients, higher‐latitude soils might be more or less suitable than average conditions within the current ranges of species, thereby accelerating or slowing potential poleward migration.
In this study, we built three SDMs – one with only climate predictors, one with only soil predictors, and one with both – for each of 1870 plant species in Eastern North America, in order to investigate the relative importance of soil properties in determining plant distributions and poleward shifts under climate change.
While climate variables were the most important predictors, soil properties also had a substantial influence on continental‐scale plant distributions. Under future climate scenarios, models including soil predicted much smaller northward shifts in distributions than climate‐only models (c. 40% reduction).
Our findings strongly suggest that high‐latitude soils are likely to impede ongoing plant migration, and they highlight the necessity of incorporating soil properties into models and predictions for plant distributions and migration under environmental change.
... in several studies (Bertrand et al., 2011;Dullinger et al., 2012;Talluto et al., 2017;Rumpf et al., 2019). Still, many predictions of F I G U R E 4 Predicted marginal effects of current and past GDD on abundance of (a) the northern liverwort (B. ...
Questions
Near‐ground temperatures can vary substantially over relatively short distances, enabling species with different temperature preferences and geographical distributions to co‐exist within a small area. In a forest landscape, the near‐ground temperatures may change due to management activities that alter forest density. As a result of such management activities, current species distributions and performances might not only be affected by current microclimates, but also by past conditions due to time‐lagged responses.
Location
Sweden.
Methods
We examined the effects of past and current microclimates on the distributions and performances of two northern, cold‐favoured, and two southern, warm‐favoured, plant species in 53 managed forest sites. Each pair was represented by one vascular plant and one bryophyte species. We used temperature logger data and predictions from microclimate models based on changes in basal area to relate patterns of occurrence, abundance, and reproduction to current and past microclimate.
Results
The two northern species were generally favoured by microclimates that were currently cold, characterised by later snowmelt and low accumulated heat over the growing season. In contrast, the two southern species were generally favoured by currently warm microclimates, characterised by high accumulated heat over the growing season. Species generally had higher abundance in sites with a preferred microclimate both in the past and present, and lower abundance than expected from current conditions, if the past microclimate had changed from warm to cold or vice versa, indicating time‐lags in abundance patterns of the species.
Conclusions
Our results show a potential importance of past and present microclimate heterogeneity for the co‐existence of species with different temperature preferences in the same landscape and highlight the possibility to manage microclimates to mitigate climate change impacts on forest biodiversity.
... An outstanding question in studying the responses of forest reproduction to climate change is whether there are individual traits that can explain the variation in masting breakdown. Unlike our past studies , we here test how changes in masting patterns are modulated by individual tree size, which is a key life-history trait related to plant growth, survival, and reproduction (Bennett et al., 2015;Qiu et al., 2021;Stovall et al., 2019). ...
... Seed supply can be optimized by stand structure management, but such management is unlikely to fully compensate for the fecundity decline we observed. Depending on the climate change effects on later life stages, local extinctions may follow (Hylander & Ehrlén, 2013;Talluto et al., 2017;Tilman et al., 1994). These results set priorities for further research and management. ...
... Seed supply can be optimized by stand structure management, but such management is unlikely to fully compensate for the fecundity decline we observed. Depending on the climate change effects on later life stages, local extinctions may follow (Hylander & Ehrlén, 2013;Talluto et al., 2017;Tilman et al., 1994). These results set priorities for further research and management. ...
Climate warming increases tree mortality which will require sufficient reproduction to ensure population viability. However, the response of tree reproduction to climate change remains poorly understood. Warming can reduce synchrony and interannual variability of seed production ("masting breakdown") which can increase seed predation and decrease pollination efficiency in trees. Here, using 40 years of observations of individual seed production in European beech (Fagus sylvatica), we showed that masting breakdown results in declining viable seed production over time, in contrast to the positive trend apparent in raw seed count data. Furthermore, tree size modulates the consequences of masting breakdown on viable seed production. While seed predation increased over time mainly in small trees, pollination efficiency disproportionately decreased in larger individuals. Consequently, fecundity declined over time across all size classes, but the overall effect was greatest in large trees. Our study showed that a fundamental biological relationship-correlation between tree size and viable seed production-has been reversed as the climate has warmed. That reversal has diverse consequences for forest dynamics; including for stand- and biogeographical-level dynamics of forest regeneration. The tree size effects suggest management options to increase forest resilience under changing climates.
