Individualistic sensitivities and exposure to climate change explain variation in species' distribution and abundance changes

Palmer, G., Hill, J. K., Brereton, T. M., Brooks, D. R., Chapman, J. W., Fox, R., Oliver, T. H. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4169-7313 and Thomas, C. D. (2015) Individualistic sensitivities and exposure to climate change explain variation in species' distribution and abundance changes. Science Advances, 1 (9). e1400220. ISSN 2375-2548 doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1400220

Abstract/Summary

The responses of animals and plants to recent climate change vary greatly from species to species, but attempts to understand this variation have met with limited success. This has led to concerns that predictions of responses are inherently uncertain because of the complexity of interacting drivers and biotic interactions. However, we show for an exemplar group of 155 Lepidoptera species that about 60% of the variation among species in their abundance trends over the past four decades can be explained by species-specific exposure and sensitivity to climate change. Distribution changes were less well predicted, but nonetheless, up to 53% of the variation was explained. We found that species vary in their overall sensitivity to climate and respond to different components of the climate despite ostensibly experiencing the same climate changes. Hence, species have undergone different levels of population “forcing” (exposure), driving variation among species in their national-scale abundance and distribution trends. We conclude that variation in species’ responses to recent climate change may be more predictable than previously recognized.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/47873
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Biological Sciences > Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Publisher	American Association for the Advancement of Science
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