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

Bravo, David; Veloz, Sam; Holt, Ben G.; Singarayer, Joy; Valdes, Paul J.; Davis, Basil A.S.; Brewer, Simon; Williams, John W.; Rahbek, Carsten

doi:10.1038/nclimate3146

Cited by 34 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Our findings contrast with other studies, such as those of Nogues‐Bravo et al (), who found a strong reduction of range loss when including fossil data for projecting future conservation risks for plants in North America and Europe. Such qualitatively different responses to incorporating fossil data could have many explanations.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…Such qualitatively different responses to incorporating fossil data could have many explanations. The results of Nogues‐Bravo et al () might have been influenced by their grouping of species into genera and families, whereas we studied responses at the species level for six of our eight plant taxa. Alternatively, these differences might also be attributable to inherent differences of temperate and tropical species.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Broader niches revealed by fossil data do not reduce estimates of range loss and fragmentation of African montane trees

Ivory

Russell

Early

et al. 2019

Global Ecol Biogeogr

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Aim The climate tolerances of many species are broader than those estimated from current native ranges. Indeed, the niches of some Afromontane trees are up to 50% larger after incorporation of fossil data. This expansion could reduce estimates of species' future range loss owing to climate change but also implies strong non‐climatic limitations on species' current ranges. One such limitation is land use, which fossil data suggest influences Afromontane tree distribution, preventing these trees from occupying warmer conditions than they do currently. We aimed to assess the degree to which the broader climatic tolerances revealed by fossil data buffer projected range loss from climate and land use for Afromontane trees. Location Africa. Time period Last 21,000 years. Major taxa studied Afromontane trees. Methods We used species distribution models informed by both current and fossil distributions to project future ranges under climate and land‐use projections. Results We found that projected range reductions are only slightly ameliorated by incorporation of fossil distributions, and these improvements diminish further under severe land‐use or climate change scenarios. Taxa that are less impacted by climate are more impacted by intense land use. Depending on the severity of climate and land use, the geographical extent of Afromontane tree species' ranges will contract by 40–85%, and the trees will be completely lost from large portions of Africa. We projected that the surviving species' ranges will become increasingly fragmented. Main conclusions Maintaining Afromontane ecosystems will require mitigation of both climate and land‐use change and protection of areas to optimize connectivity. Our findings caution that species with climate tolerances broader than their current range might not necessarily fare better under strong changes in climate or land use.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Broader niches revealed by fossil data do not reduce estimates of range loss and fragmentation of African montane trees

Ivory

Russell

Early

et al. 2019

Global Ecol Biogeogr

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“…Several avenues exist to improve ecological forecasting in the face of climate novelty. One is to pool ecological data from multiple time periods to better encompass the climatic niche of species (Nogués‐Bravo et al., ), with a critical need to focus on past warm periods that may be partial analogs for warm future climates. How best to pool data through time to avoid biasing models to particular time periods is a subject of ongoing study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How will climate novelty influence ecological forecasts? Using the Quaternary to assess future reliability

Fitzpatrick

Blois

Williams

et al. 2018

Global Change Biology

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Future climates are projected to be highly novel relative to recent climates. Climate novelty challenges models that correlate ecological patterns to climate variables and then use these relationships to forecast ecological responses to future climate change. Here, we quantify the magnitude and ecological significance of future climate novelty by comparing it to novel climates over the past 21,000 years in North America. We then use relationships between model performance and climate novelty derived from the fossil pollen record from eastern North America to estimate the expected decrease in predictive skill of ecological forecasting models as future climate novelty increases. We show that, in the high emissions scenario (RCP 8.5) and by late 21st century, future climate novelty is similar to or higher than peak levels of climate novelty over the last 21,000 years. The accuracy of ecological forecasting models is projected to decline steadily over the coming decades in response to increasing climate novelty, although models that incorporate co-occurrences among species may retain somewhat higher predictive skill. In addition to quantifying future climate novelty in the context of late Quaternary climate change, this work underscores the challenges of making reliable forecasts to an increasingly novel future, while highlighting the need to assess potential avenues for improvement, such as increased reliance on geological analogs for future novel climates and improving existing models by pooling data through time and incorporating assemblage-level information.

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“…In other words, our results are not consistent with the hypothesis that extinctions occurred commonly in areas of high climate velocity (in geological terms) because species in those areas failed to track shifting climatic conditions (Sandel et al, ). It is likely that biological responses to post‐glacial climate changes are primarily through changes in species abundance and distributions (Nogués‐Bravo et al, ), rather than through massive extinctions of species. Small populations of at least some long‐lived species may have persisted in refugia through periods of adverse climatic conditions (Willis & MacDonald, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The origins and maintenance of global species endemism

Zuloaga

Currie

Kerr

2018

Global Ecol Biogeogr

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Aim We test macroecological hypotheses (H1: long‐term climate stability; H2: climate seasonality; H3: climate distinctiveness or rarity; and, H4: spatial heterogeneity in contemporary climate, topography or habitat) proposed to explain broad‐scale patterns of total species endemism. Location Continental areas worldwide and zoogeographical realms. Methods Using species distribution maps for mammals and amphibians, we calculated five metrics of species endemism, based on inverse and median range size, and range size cut‐offs. We performed multi‐model averaging. We tested the accuracy of fitted models using cross‐validation, comparing observed versus predicted values of endemism among zoogeographical realms. Results Model averaging showed that species endemism for amphibians and mammals was statistically related to all set of predictors (H1, H2, H4 and richness), except for climate distinctiveness (H3). Effect sizes for spatial heterogeneity were larger and more consistent among zoogeographical realms than the effect sizes of climate stability. The effect of species richness on species endemism varies widely and depends on the metric of endemism and taxonomic group used in the analysis. Cross‐validation across all zoogeographical realms showed that predictions of endemism systematically fail for both taxa. In most cases, low to moderate endemism is predicted reasonably well. However, areas with high numbers of endemic species are systematically under‐predicted. Main conclusions Our results are not consistent with any of the processes hypothesized to create and maintain global patterns of endemism. Although we found statistically significant relationships, they failed the stronger test of a causal relationship: accurate prediction in independent data. The inconsistent effect of richness in our models suggests that patterns of endemism are not driven by the same variables as total richness. Patterns of endemism have no consistent relationships with climatic stability among zoogeographical realms, so suggestions that endemism reflect climatic stability are likely due to collinearity with other factors, especially spatial heterogeneity.

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

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Cited by 34 publications

References 36 publications

Broader niches revealed by fossil data do not reduce estimates of range loss and fragmentation of African montane trees

Broader niches revealed by fossil data do not reduce estimates of range loss and fragmentation of African montane trees

How will climate novelty influence ecological forecasts? Using the Quaternary to assess future reliability

The origins and maintenance of global species endemism

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