Habitat associations of species show consistent but weak responses to climate

Suggitt, Andrew J.; Stefanescu, Constantí; Páramo, Ferran; Oliver, Tom H.; Anderson, Barbara J.; Hill, Jane K.; Roy, David B.; Brereton, Tom; Thomas, Chris D.

doi:10.1098/rsbl.2012.0112

Cited by 53 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Considering that only a small proportion of total land area can ever be realistically protected in the form of nature reserves, conservation efforts must also comprise the surrounding area of nature reserves considering all components of biodiversity [29]. This becomes particularly important in a changing climate scenario, when species – as we have shown here for butterflies – may leave existing nature reserves or alter their habitat associations in search of more climatically-suitable habitats [18], [68].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Signals of Climate Change in Butterfly Communities in a Mediterranean Protected Area

et al. 2014

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The European protected-area network will cease to be efficient for biodiversity conservation, particularly in the Mediterranean region, if species are driven out of protected areas by climate warming. Yet, no empirical evidence of how climate change influences ecological communities in Mediterranean nature reserves really exists. Here, we examine long-term (1998–2011/2012) and short-term (2011–2012) changes in the butterfly fauna of Dadia National Park (Greece) by revisiting 21 and 18 transects in 2011 and 2012 respectively, that were initially surveyed in 1998. We evaluate the temperature trend for the study area for a 22-year-period (1990–2012) in which all three butterfly surveys are included. We also assess changes in community composition and species richness in butterfly communities using information on (a) species’ elevational distributions in Greece and (b) Community Temperature Index (calculated from the average temperature of species' geographical ranges in Europe, weighted by species' abundance per transect and year). Despite the protected status of Dadia NP and the subsequent stability of land use regimes, we found a marked change in butterfly community composition over a 13 year period, concomitant with an increase of annual average temperature of 0.95°C. Our analysis gave no evidence of significant year-to-year (2011–2012) variability in butterfly community composition, suggesting that the community composition change we recorded is likely the consequence of long-term environmental change, such as climate warming. We observe an increased abundance of low-elevation species whereas species mainly occurring at higher elevations in the region declined. The Community Temperature Index was found to increase in all habitats except agricultural areas. If equivalent changes occur in other protected areas and taxonomic groups across Mediterranean Europe, new conservation options and approaches for increasing species’ resilience may have to be devised.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Signals of Climate Change in Butterfly Communities in a Mediterranean Protected Area

et al. 2014

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“…For example, Suggitt et al (2012) found that butterflies occurring in Illán et al, 2012), these rates are unlikely to represent fixed attributes of the species. seed production as the climate has warmed (Steltzer & Post, 2009).…”

Section: Date Of Appearancementioning

confidence: 99%

Butterfly phenology in Mediterranean mountains using space‐for‐time substitution

Zografou

Grill

Wilson

et al. 2020

Ecology and Evolution

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Inferring species' responses to climate change in the absence of long-term time series data is a challenge, but can be achieved by substituting space for time. For example, thermal elevational gradients represent suitable proxies to study phenological responses to warming. We used butterfly data from two Mediterranean mountain areas to test whether mean dates of appearance of communities and individual species show a delay with increasing altitude, and an accompanying shortening in the duration of flight periods. We found a 14-day delay in the mean date of appearance per kilometer increase in altitude for butterfly communities overall, and an average 23day shift for 26 selected species, alongside average summer temperature lapse rates of 3°C per km. At higher elevations, there was a shortening of the flight period for the community of 3 days/km, with an 8.8-day average decline per km for individual species. Rates of phenological delay differed significantly between the two mountain ranges, although this did not seem to result from the respective temperature lapse rates. These results suggest that climate warming could lead to advanced and lengthened flight periods for Mediterranean mountain butterfly communities. However, although multivoltine species showed the expected response of delayed and shortened flight periods at higher elevations, univoltine species showed more pronounced delays in terms of species appearance. Hence, while projections of overall community responses to climate change may benefit from space-for-time substitutions, understanding species-specific responses to local features of habitat and climate may be needed to accurately predict the effects of climate change on phenology. K E Y W O R D Schanging climate, developmental delay, elevational gradient, emergence time, flight period S U PP O RTI N G I N FO R M ATI O NAdditional supporting information may be found online in the Supporting Information section.

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“…Determining if these changes in distribution will be fast enough to cope with current climate change, or conversely if species and communities are acquiring climatic debts, is therefore crucial [94]. Ample evidence suggests that these distributional changes are ultimately influenced by microclimatic effects, behavioral buffering and genetic and epigenetic adaptations [95][96][97][98][99]. Biotic interactions can also strongly modify the species-specific capacity to disperse and thus should also be included for developing more robust models for predicting future species distributions [100].…”

Section: Changes In Morphology Physiology Phenology and Growth In Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of Global Change on Mediterranean Forests and Their Services

Peñuelas

Sardans

Filella

et al. 2017

Forests

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127

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The increase in aridity, mainly by decreases in precipitation but also by higher temperatures, is likely the main threat to the diversity and survival of Mediterranean forests. Changes in land use, including the abandonment of extensive crop activities, mainly in mountains and remote areas, and the increases in human settlements and demand for more resources with the resulting fragmentation of the landscape, hinder the establishment of appropriate management tools to protect Mediterranean forests and their provision of services and biodiversity. Experiments and observations indicate that if changes in climate, land use and other components of global change, such as pollution and overexploitation of resources, continue, the resilience of many forests will likely be exceeded, altering their structure and function and changing, mostly decreasing, their capacity to continue to provide their current services. A consistent assessment of the impacts of the changes, however, remains elusive due to the difficulty of obtaining simultaneous and complete data for all scales of the impacts in the same forests, areas and regions. We review the impacts of climate change and other components of global change and their interactions on the terrestrial forests of Mediterranean regions, with special attention to their impacts on ecosystem services. Management tools for counteracting the negative effects of global change on Mediterranean ecosystem- services are finally discussed.

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Habitat associations of species show consistent but weak responses to climate

Cited by 53 publications

References 10 publications

Signals of Climate Change in Butterfly Communities in a Mediterranean Protected Area

Signals of Climate Change in Butterfly Communities in a Mediterranean Protected Area

Butterfly phenology in Mediterranean mountains using space‐for‐time substitution

Impacts of Global Change on Mediterranean Forests and Their Services

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