Effects of global climate change on the patterns of terrestrial biological communities

Graham, Russell W.; Grimm, Eric C.

doi:10.1016/0169-5347(90)90083-p

Cited by 284 publications

(182 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…However, less use has been made of the natural experiment provided by the Late Pleistocene glaciation event. Many studies have documented the changes in species distributions and the subsequent effect on community structure (Graham 1986;Graham & Grimm 1990;Overpeck et al 1992;Graham et al 1996;Jackson & Overpeck 2000;Williams et al 2001;Lyons 2003Lyons , 2005Jackson & Williams 2004;MacDonald et al 2008). Less attention has been paid to the species traits associated with range shifts (but see Roy et al 2002).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological correlates of range shifts of Late Pleistocene mammals

Lyons

Wagner

Dzikiewicz

2010

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Understanding and predicting how species' distributions will shift as climate changes are central questions in ecology today. The late Quaternary of North America represents a natural experiment in which we can evaluate how species responded during the expansion and contraction of the glaciers. Here, we ask whether species' range shifts differ because of taxonomic affinity, life-history traits, body size or topographic heterogeneity and whether the species survived the megafaunal extinction. There was no difference in range shifts between victims and survivors of the megafaunal extinction. In general, the change in the size of a species' range is not well correlated with any of the ecological or life-history traits evaluated. However, there are significant relationships between some variables and the movements of the centroids of ranges. Differences in the distances shifted exist among orders, although this is probably a result of body size differences as larger bodied species show larger shifts. Although there are a few exceptions, the distance that species shifted their range was weakly correlated with life-history traits. Finally, species in more topographically heterogeneous areas show smaller shifts than species in less-diverse areas. Overall, these results indicate that when trying to predict species range shifts in the future, body size, lifespan and the topographic relief of the landscape should be taken into account.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological correlates of range shifts of Late Pleistocene mammals

Lyons

Wagner

Dzikiewicz

2010

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Today, neither of these taxa are found in the vicinity of the cave, and in fact are largely allopatric in distribution (29), with L. curtatus restricted primarily to the Great Basin and M. borealis to boreal regions. This combination of species constitutes a no-analog association, such as has been reported commonly for late Pleistocene faunas and floras (9). However, in contrast to the late Pleistocene situation, the no-analog pair at Porcupine Cave did not disassociate during either of the mid-Pleistocene glacial to interglacial transitions.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 75%

“…We have two goals. First, we address whether mid-Pleistocene communities resembled late Pleistocene ones (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9) in their adjustments at times of climatic change, as a way to test for the relative influence of humans versus climate in the late Pleistocene. This test is possible because inferred midPleistocene glacial-interglacial transitions at our study site predated human arrival by at least 600,000 years.…”

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confidence: 99%

Exceptional record of mid-Pleistocene vertebrates helps differentiate climatic from anthropogenic ecosystem perturbations

Barnosky

Bell

Emslie

et al. 2004

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Mid-Pleistocene vertebrates in North America are scarce but important for recognizing the ecological effects of climatic change in the absence of humans. We report on a uniquely rich mid-Pleistocene vertebrate sequence from Porcupine Cave, Colorado, which records at least 127 species and the earliest appearances of 30 mammals and birds. By analyzing >20,000 mammal fossils in relation to modern species and independent climatic proxies, we determined how mammal communities reacted to presumed glacial-interglacial transitions between 1,000,000 and 600,000 years ago. We conclude that climatic warming primarily affected mammals of lower trophic and size categories, in contrast to documented human impacts on higher trophic and size categories historically. Despite changes in species composition and minor changes in small-mammal species richness evident at times of climatic change, overall structural stability of mammal communities persisted >600,000 years before human impacts.

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“…Graham and Grimm (1990), however, caution against extensive reliance on past conditions in forecasting future patterns. They argue that predicting community response to greenhouse warming becomes particularly hazardous as the typically forecasted temperature increase exceeds that of any period of the last 120,000 years, a conclusion reflecting the results of Davis's (1990) study concerning forest-species response.…”

Section: Forecasting Potential Changes In Species Communities: Integrmentioning

confidence: 99%