Bioclimatic velocity: the pace of species exposure to climate change

Aim To investigate the velocity of species-specific exposure to climate change for mid- and late 21st century and develop metrics that quantify exposure to climate change over space and time. Location California Floristic Province, south-western USA. Methods Occurrences from presence/absence inventories of eight Californian endemic tree species (Pinus balfouriana [Grev.&Balf.], Pinus coulteri [D.Don], Pinus muricata [D.Don.], Pinus sabiniana [D.Don], Quercus douglasii [Hook.&Arn.], Quercus engelmannii [Greene], Quercus lobata [Nee] and Quercus wislizeni [A.DC.]) were used to develop eight species distribution models (SDMs) for each species with the BIOMOD platform, and this ensemble was used to construct current suitability maps and future projections based on two global circulation models in two time periods [mid-century: 2041–2070 and late century (LC): 2071–2100]. From the resulting current and future suitability maps, we calculated a bioclimatic velocity as the ratio of temporal gradient to spatial gradient. We developed and compared eight metrics of temporal exposure to climate change for mid- and LC for each species. Results The velocity of species exposure to climate change varies across species and time periods, even for similarly distributed species. We find weak support among the species analysed for higher velocities in exposure to climate change towards the end of the 21st century, coinciding with harsher conditions. The variation in the pace of exposure was greater among species than for climate projections considered. Main conclusions The pace of climate change exposure varies depending on period of analysis, species and the spatial extent of conservation decisions (potential ranges versus current distributions). Translating physical climatic space into a biotic climatic space helps informing conservation decisions in a given time frame. However, the influence of spatial and temporal resolution on modelled species distributions needs further consideration in order to better characterize the dynamics of exposure and species-specific velocities.

[1]  Alex S. Kutt,et al.  Focus on poleward shifts in species' distribution underestimates the fingerprint of climate change , 2013 .

[2]  Jennifer A. Miller,et al.  Mapping Species Distributions: Spatial Inference and Prediction , 2010 .

[3]  James S. Clark,et al.  Failure to migrate: lack of tree range expansion in response to climate change , 2012 .

[4]  M. Sykes,et al.  Climate change threats to plant diversity in Europe. , 2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[5]  Omri Allouche,et al.  Assessing the accuracy of species distribution models: prevalence, kappa and the true skill statistic (TSS) , 2006 .

[6]  J. Franklin.  Moving beyond static species distribution models in support of conservation biogeography , 2010 .

[7]  Steven R. Beissinger,et al.  The push and pull of climate change causes heterogeneous shifts in avian elevational ranges , 2012 .

[8]  W. Hargrove,et al.  The projection of species distribution models and the problem of non-analog climate , 2009, Biodiversity and Conservation.

[9]  Alan L. Flint,et al.  Downscaling future climate scenarios to fine scales for hydrologic and ecological modeling and analysis , 2012, Ecological Processes.

[10]  J. Svenning,et al.  Potential impact of climatic change on the distribution of forest herbs in Europe , 2004 .

[11]  Jason Beringer,et al.  Means and extremes: building variability into community-level climate change experiments. , 2013, Ecology letters.

[12]  Yu-Huang Wang,et al.  Habitat suitability modelling to correlate gene flow with landscape connectivity , 2008, Landscape Ecology.

[13]  C. Field,et al.  The velocity of climate change , 2009, Nature.

[14]  M. Dettinger,et al.  Climate change scenarios for the California region , 2008 .

[15]  Michael D. Dettinger,et al.  CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOS AND SEA LEVEL RISE ESTIMATES FOR THE CALIFORNIA 2008 CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOS ASSESSMENT , 2009 .

[16]  J. Franklin,et al.  Modeling plant species distributions under future climates: how fine scale do climate projections need to be? , 2013, Global change biology.

[17]  Heike Lischke,et al.  Interannual climate variability and population density thresholds can have a substantial impact on simulated tree species’ migration , 2013 .

[18]  J. Iriondo,et al.  Extreme climatic events and vegetation: the role of stabilizing processes , 2012 .

[19]  D. Ackerly,et al.  Climate Change and the Future of California's Endemic Flora , 2008, PloS one.

[20]  H. Barlow,et al.  Asymmetric boundary shifts of tropical montane Lepidoptera over four decades of climate warming , 2011 .

[21]  J. Svenning,et al.  Limited filling of the potential range in European tree species , 2004 .

[22]  Michael K Schwartz,et al.  The climate velocity of the contiguous United States during the 20th century , 2013, Global change biology.

[23]  M. Araújo,et al.  CLIMATE PREDICTORS OF LATE QUATERNARY EXTINCTIONS , 2010, Evolution; international journal of organic evolution.

[24]  L. Underhill,et al.  A changing climate is eroding the geographical range of the Namib Desert tree Aloe through population declines and dispersal lags , 2007 .

[25]  Nathan J B Kraft,et al.  The geography of climate change: implications for conservation biogeography , 2010 .

[26]  M. Pärtel,et al.  Extinction debt: a challenge for biodiversity conservation. , 2009, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[27]  O. Phillips,et al.  Extinction risk from climate change , 2004, Nature.

[28]  Jeremy VanDerWal,et al.  Nice weather for bettongs: using weather events, not climate means, in species distribution models , 2012 .

[29]  W. Thuiller.  Patterns and uncertainties of species' range shifts under climate change , 2004 .

[30]  D. Sax,et al.  Analysis of climate paths reveals potential limitations on species range shifts. , 2011, Ecology letters.

[31]  T. Brereton,et al.  Range expansion through fragmented landscapes under a variable climate , 2013, Ecology letters.

[32]  T. Keenan,et al.  Predicting the future of forests in the Mediterranean under climate change, with niche‐ and process‐based models: CO2 matters! , 2011 .

[33]  Wilfried Thuiller,et al.  Invasive species distribution models – how violating the equilibrium assumption can create new insights , 2012 .

[34]  Mark New,et al.  Ensemble forecasting of species distributions. , 2007, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[35]  Wilfried Thuiller,et al.  Climate change threatens European conservation areas , 2011, Ecology letters.

[36]  G. Mace,et al.  Beyond Predictions: Biodiversity Conservation in a Changing Climate , 2011, Science.

[37]  April E. Reside,et al.  Weather, Not Climate, Defines Distributions of Vagile Bird Species , 2010, PloS one.

[38]  D. Ojima,et al.  A Review of Climate‐Change Adaptation Strategies for Wildlife Management and Biodiversity Conservation , 2009, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[39]  Franklin B. Schwing,et al.  The Pace of Shifting Climate in Marine and Terrestrial Ecosystems , 2011, Science.

[40]  Antoine Guisan,et al.  Climatic extremes improve predictions of spatial patterns of tree species , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[41]  Steven J. Phillips,et al.  The art of modelling range‐shifting species , 2010 .

[42]  F. Zwiers,et al.  Climate extremes indices in the CMIP5 multimodel ensemble: Part 1. Model evaluation in the present climate , 2013 .

[43]  L. Hannah,et al.  BioMove - Improvement and Parameterization of a Hybrid Model fo the ASsessment of Climate Change impacts on the Vegetation of California , 2015 .

[44]  F. Jiguet,et al.  Selecting pseudo‐absences for species distribution models: how, where and how many? , 2012 .

[45]  Joshua H. Viers,et al.  Threats and biodiversity in the mediterranean biome , 2009 .

[46]  L. Hannah,et al.  Climate change‐integrated conservation strategies , 2002 .

[47]  Mark W. Schwartz,et al.  Using niche models with climate projections to inform conservation management decisions , 2012 .

[48]  R. Shaw,et al.  Range shifts and adaptive responses to Quaternary climate change. , 2001, Science.

[49]  R. G. Davies,et al.  The Influence of Late Quaternary Climate-Change Velocity on Species Endemism , 2011, Science.

[50]  R. B. Jackson,et al.  Global biodiversity scenarios for the year 2100. , 2000, Science.

[51]  J. VanDerWal,et al.  Signatures of range expansion and erosion in eastern North American trees. , 2010, Ecology letters.

[52]  M. Araújo,et al.  Choice of threshold alters projections of species range shifts under climate change , 2011 .

[53]  M. Araújo,et al.  BIOMOD – a platform for ensemble forecasting of species distributions , 2009 .

[54]  D. Wascher,et al.  Climate change meets habitat fragmentation: linking landscape and biogeographical scale levels in research and conservation , 2004 .

[55]  John-Arvid Grytnes,et al.  Local temperatures inferred from plant communities suggest strong spatial buffering of climate warming across Northern Europe , 2013, Global change biology.