Herbaceous perennial plants with short generation time have stronger responses to climate anomalies than those with longer generation time

Compagnoni, Aldo; Levin, Sam; Childs, Dylan Z.; Paniw, Maria; Römer, Gesa; Burns, Jean H.; Che‐Castaldo, Judy; Rüger, Nadja; Künstler, Georges; Bennett, Joanne M.; Archer, C. Ruth; Jones, Owen R.; Salguero‐Gómez, Roberto; Knight, Tiffany M.

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-21977-9

Cited by 64 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 67 publications

(82 reference statements)

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“…While it has long been theorised that an organism’s life-history traits evolve in response to, and as an adaptation to, environmental conditions (Stearns, 1992), rarely has this theory been tested at a global scale. We find strong support for the hypothesis that longevity, and ‘slow’ life-history characteristics more generally, buffer organisms against short-term variability in the environment (Morris et al, 2008) and add to a small number of studies linking population demography and the climate (Compagnoni et al, 2021; Paniw et al, 2021). We predict that in the short term abrupt ecological disruption from climate change will have a disproportionate impact the abundance of shorter-lived species with higher reproductive output.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

“…Studies unpicking how changes in weather patterns cause population change are therefore vital (Coulson et al, 2001), and a growing body of literature is exploring the relationship between the climate and the demographic processes driving population decline (Cordes et al, 2020; Layton-Matthews et al, 2020; Paniw et al, 2019, 2021; Woodroffe et al, 2017). Applying these concepts at a comparative scale and assessing finer-scale population changes with respect to changes in the weather, and their relationship to species traits, will aid in illuminating consistent or disparate climate change responses across the tree of life (Compagnoni et al, 2021; Paniw et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Generally, we expect that organisms with slower life-histories are better-adapted to cope with fluctuations in the environment. Longer-lived organisms have a reduced relative effect of variability in vital rates, variability which is expected during environmental change, on population growth rates (Morris et al, 2008) and long-lived plants have weaker absolute demographic responses to weather (Compagnoni et al, 2021). However, while generally buffered, long-lived, slow reproducing animals are often more at risk of extinction (Cardillo et al, 2000), and slower to recover when perturbed (Gamelon et al, 2014; Jackson et al, 2019; Turkalo et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Life-history predicts global population responses to the weather in the terrestrial mammals

Jackson

Cœur

Jones

2021

Preprint

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With the looming threat of abrupt ecological disruption due to a changing climate, predicting which species are most vulnerable to environmental change is critical. The life-history of a species is a promising candidate for explaining differences in climate-change responses, but we now need data linking population change, weather and life-history to explore these predictions. Here, we use long-term abundance records from 157 species of terrestrial mammals to investigate the link between weather and annual population growth rates. Overall, we found no consistent effect of temperature or precipitation anomalies on annual population growth rates, but there was variability in weather responses for populations within a species. Crucially, however, long-lived mammals with smaller litter sizes had responses with a reduced absolute magnitude compared to their shorter-living counterparts with larger litters. These results highlight the role of species-level life-history in driving responses to the environment.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Life-history predicts global population responses to the weather in the terrestrial mammals

Jackson

Cœur

Jones

2021

Preprint

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“…Several studies have shown evidence that populations located at the fast end of the fast-slow continuum are more sensitive to changes in the different components of climate change. These populations tend to respond more strongly to climate drivers (e.g., Compagnoni et al . (2021)), to changes in demographic or environmental variability (e.g., Dalgleish et al .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life history adaptations to fluctuating environments: Combined effects of demographic buffering and lability of demographic parameters

Cœur

Yoccoz

Salguero‐Gómez

et al. 2021

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Demographic buffering and lability have both been identified as important adaptive strategies to optimise long-term fitness in variable environments. These strategies are not mutually exclusive, however we lack efficient methods to measure their relative importance. Here, we define a new index to measure the total lability for a given life history, and use stochastic simulations to disentangle relative fitness effects of buffering and lability. The simulations use 81 animal matrix population models, and different scenarios to explore how the strategies vary across life histories. The highest potential for adaptive demographic lability was found for short- to intermediately long-lived species, while demographic buffering was the main response in slow-living species. This study suggests that faster-living species are more responsive to environmental variability, both for positive or negative effects. Our methods and results provide a more comprehensive view of adaptations to variability, of high relevance to predict species responses to climate change.

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“…Species traits hold some promise to identify likely temporal coexistence mechanisms (Adler et al 2013). Life history traits have been found to relate to sensitivity to climate anomalies in herbaceous perennials (Compagnoni et al 2021), birds (Cohen et al 2020), and amphibians (Cayuela et al 2017), but much work remains to be done in this area.…”

Section: Identifying Processes In the Real Worldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synthesising the multiple impacts of climatic variability on community responses to climate change

Terry

Rossberg

2021

Preprint

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Recent developments in understanding and predicting species responses to climate change have emphasised the importance of both environmental variability and consideration of the wider biotic community. To date, the interaction between the two has received less attention. However, considerable bodies of theory and empirical results suggest that multi-species consequences of variability can have strong impacts on range limits and the speed of range shifts. Here we demonstrate how biotic interactions and temporal variability can act together to influence range shift dynamics and highlight the need to understand these interactions in order to predict how species will respond to global change. We emphasise the value and utility of partitioning approaches applied to parameterised models to determine the direction and relative importance and direct of these forces in empirical systems.AuthorshipJCDT wrote the manuscript and built the models. All authors contributed significantly to the editing and manuscript development.FundingThe work was supported by NERC grant NE/T003510/1Data Sharing and Data AccessibilityCode to generate all results is publicly available at https://github.com/jcdterry/ClimateVar_BioticInts and should the manuscript be accepted will be permanently archived. The paper contains no new datasets.

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Herbaceous perennial plants with short generation time have stronger responses to climate anomalies than those with longer generation time

Cited by 64 publications

References 67 publications

Life-history predicts global population responses to the weather in the terrestrial mammals

Life-history predicts global population responses to the weather in the terrestrial mammals

Life history adaptations to fluctuating environments: Combined effects of demographic buffering and lability of demographic parameters

Synthesising the multiple impacts of climatic variability on community responses to climate change

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