Spatial and temporal heterogeneity in climate change limits species' dispersal capabilities and adaptive potential

Abstract

Global climate change has already caused local declines and extinctions. These losses are generally thought to occur because climate change is progressing too rapidly for populations to keep pace. Based on this hypothesis, numerous predictive frameworks have been developed to project future range shifts and changes in population dynamics resulting from global climate change. However, recent empirical work has demonstrated that seasonally asynchronous climate change regimes -when a region is warming during some parts of the year, but cooling in others -are constraining species' responses to climate change more strongly than rapid warming, leading to intra-specific variation in responses to climate change and local population declines. Here, we couple a review of the literature related to asynchronous climate change regimes with meta-population simulations and an analysis of long-term North American climate trends to show that seasonally asynchronous regimes are occurring throughout most of North America and that their current spatial distribution may be a strong barrier to dispersal and gene flow across many species' ranges. Thus, even though adaptation to climate change may potentially be more common and rapid than previously thought, species whose ranges overlap with asynchronous regimes will likely succumb to local declines that may be difficult to mitigate via dispersal. Future climate-related predictive frameworks should therefore incorporate asynchronous regimes as well as more traditional measures of climate velocity in order to fully capture the array of potential future climate change scenarios.

Earlier Spring Arrival of the Mountain Bluebird in Central Alberta, Canada

“…Lehikoinen et al (2019: figure 3) found a similar tendency to less change in arrival dates after the late 1990s. The similarity in their rate of change and that noted in our study may indicate that certain species are approaching a limitation of the ability of their arrival dates to advance further (Senner et al 2018). in early spring migrants such advancement may be constrained by cold, wet spring weather (Holroyd and Beaubien 1997a, b).…”

Geographic variation in the intensity of warming and phenological mismatch between Arctic shorebirds and invertebrates

“…Instead, our results add to the growing literature suggesting that there are common ecological principles, such as the occurrence of contrasting climate change regimes, that determine the severity of phenological mismatches across sites and species (Visser and Both , Senner et al. ).…”

“…Therefore, we have little understanding of the spatial variation in the frequency and strength of mismatches (Senner et al. ), even though the rate of climatic change is inconsistent across both latitudes and biomes (Loarie et al. , Burrows et al.…”

“…Nevertheless, directly comparable replicates of ecological communities monitored for phenological mismatches at multiple geographic locations are rare (Pearce-Higgins et al 2005, Bauer et al 2009, Saino et al 2009). Therefore, we have little understanding of the spatial variation in the frequency and strength of mismatches (Senner et al 2018), even though the rate of climatic change is inconsistent across both latitudes and biomes (Loarie et al 2009, Burrows et al 2011.…”

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“…However, variability among species is wide and poorly understood, and the mechanisms underlying these changes need further study (Knudsen et al 2011). Furthermore, seasonally asynchronous climate change-when a region warms during some parts of the year then cools in others-may constrain species' responses to climate change (Senner et al 2018).…”