Climatic and biotic velocities for woody taxa distributions over the last 16 000 years in eastern North America

Abstract

We estimated the latitudinal velocity (km/decade) of northern and southern boundaries of core distributions for 30 woody taxa over the last 16 000 years (biotic velocities) using networks of fossil pollen records, and compared these with climate velocities estimated from CCSM3 simulations. Biotic velocities were faster during periods of rapid temperature change (i.e. 16 to 7 ka) than times of relative stability (i.e. 7 to 1 ka), with a consistent northward movement of northern and southern boundaries. For most taxa, biotic velocities were faster for northern than for southern boundaries between 12 and 7 ka, resulting in expanding distributions. For individual time periods, biotic velocities were as fast or faster than climate velocities calculated using multivariate approaches. These results indicate that climate change paced the rate of distribution shifts in both northern and southern populations while suggesting that northern populations were more sensitive. A similar sensitivity and pacing is expected under 21st century climate change.

Amplified plant turnover in response to climate change forecast by Late Quaternary records

“…Note also that our estimates of conservation status are conservative as our models assume a full dispersal scenario, whereas in reality many taxa are dispersal-limited. The climate change velocity for the twenty-first century, between 0.8 to 12.6 km/decade, is within the range of estimates of recent range shifts 21 (16.9km/decade) but faster than estimates of plant distribution shifts during the last deglaciation: up to 2.7 km/decade in North America 22 and 2.6 km/decade in Europe 23 , although those estimates are sensitive to temporal resolution 22 , and our ability to accurately reconstruct past plant distributions 24 .…”

Local climatic adaptation in a widespread microorganism

“…These observations suggest that the ecological niche of S. paradoxus is defined at least partly by climatic conditions. Given that S. paradoxus is distributed up to the northern boundary of deciduous tree distribution (see electronic supplementary material, figure S1) and that global changes are expected to disturb the northern boundary of tree species distributions [28], one would expect that S. paradoxus populations will also be affected by global changes. This distribution makes it a prime model to study the role of climate change in adaptation.…”

Modeling the Boundaries of Plant Ecotones of Mountain Ecosystems

“…Certain plant species have moved upwards, to higher latitude regions [3][4][5][6]; altitudinal boundaries of the plant communities in the mountainous regions have also shifted [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. Climate change may be a reason for the shifts of the boundaries of the natural zones, but the effect of the climate is often combined with the effects of the interactions between ecosystem components and, certainly, with the industrial impact and other human-related factors [15][16][17].…”