epcc: An R package to assess and simulate the vulnerability of ectothermic populations when facing climate change

Abstract

An established framework to evaluate vulnerability to global warming is to associate the expected temperature trends with thermal performance curves, which indicate how fitness changes as a function of body temperature. Mathematical modelling approaches allow synthesizing the mechanistic understanding of ecological processes, enabling the assessment of the potential impacts of global warming on populations. epcc allows to model and simulate the effects of thermal sensitivity and the exposition to different trends in environmental temperature on the abundance dynamics of ectothermic populations. epcc allows a synthesis of the possible consequences of global‐ and local‐scale warming, constituting a useful tool for understanding the risk of extinction of populations.