TY - JOUR
T1 - Empirical predictability of community responses to climate change
AU - Gaüzère, Pierre
AU - Iversen, Lars Lønsmann
AU - Barnagaud, Jean Yves
AU - Svenning, Jens Christian
AU - Blonder, Benjamin
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Gaüzère, Iversen, Barnagaud, Svenning and Blonder.
PY - 2018/11/23
Y1 - 2018/11/23
N2 - Robust predictions of ecosystem responses to climate change are challenging. To achieve such predictions, ecology has extensively relied on the assumption that community states and dynamics are at equilibrium with climate. However, empirical evidence from Quaternary and contemporary data suggest that species communities rarely follow equilibrium dynamics with climate change. This discrepancy between the conceptual foundation of many predictive models and observed community dynamics casts doubts on our ability to successfully predict future community states. Here we used community response diagrams (CRDs) to empirically investigate the occurrence of different classes of disequilibrium responses in plant communities during the Late Quaternary, and bird communities during modern climate warming in North America. We documented a large variability in types of responses including alternate states, suggesting that equilibrium dynamics are not the most common type of response to climate change. Bird responses appeared less predictable to modern climate warming than plant responses to Late Quaternary climate warming. Furthermore, we showed that baseline climate gradients were a strong predictor of disequilibrium states, while ecological factors such as species' traits had a substantial, but inconsistent effect on the deviation from equilibrium. We conclude that (1) complex temporal community dynamics including stochastic responses, lags, and alternate states are common; (2) assuming equilibrium dynamics to predict biodiversity responses to future climate changes may lead to unsuccessful predictions.
AB - Robust predictions of ecosystem responses to climate change are challenging. To achieve such predictions, ecology has extensively relied on the assumption that community states and dynamics are at equilibrium with climate. However, empirical evidence from Quaternary and contemporary data suggest that species communities rarely follow equilibrium dynamics with climate change. This discrepancy between the conceptual foundation of many predictive models and observed community dynamics casts doubts on our ability to successfully predict future community states. Here we used community response diagrams (CRDs) to empirically investigate the occurrence of different classes of disequilibrium responses in plant communities during the Late Quaternary, and bird communities during modern climate warming in North America. We documented a large variability in types of responses including alternate states, suggesting that equilibrium dynamics are not the most common type of response to climate change. Bird responses appeared less predictable to modern climate warming than plant responses to Late Quaternary climate warming. Furthermore, we showed that baseline climate gradients were a strong predictor of disequilibrium states, while ecological factors such as species' traits had a substantial, but inconsistent effect on the deviation from equilibrium. We conclude that (1) complex temporal community dynamics including stochastic responses, lags, and alternate states are common; (2) assuming equilibrium dynamics to predict biodiversity responses to future climate changes may lead to unsuccessful predictions.
KW - Anthropocene
KW - Birds
KW - Equilibrium dynamics
KW - Global changes
KW - Holocene
KW - Lagged responses
KW - Plants
KW - Predictive ecology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85057292911&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.3389/fevo.2018.00186
DO - 10.3389/fevo.2018.00186
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85057292911
SN - 2296-701X
VL - 6
JO - Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
JF - Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
IS - NOV
M1 - 186
ER -