Community and Macroecology Group, Department of Ecology, Institute of Zoology, Johannes Gutenberg-University, 55099 Mainz, Germany.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2010 Jul 12;365(1549):2035-45. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0008.
Current methods of assessing climate-induced shifts of species distributions rarely account for species interactions and usually ignore potential differences in response times of interacting taxa to climate change. Here, we used species-richness data from 1005 breeding bird and 1417 woody plant species in Kenya and employed model-averaged coefficients from regression models and median climatic forecasts assembled across 15 climate-change scenarios to predict bird species richness under climate change. Forecasts assuming an instantaneous response of woody plants and birds to climate change suggested increases in future bird species richness across most of Kenya whereas forecasts assuming strongly lagged woody plant responses to climate change indicated a reversed trend, i.e. reduced bird species richness. Uncertainties in predictions of future bird species richness were geographically structured, mainly owing to uncertainties in projected precipitation changes. We conclude that assessments of future species responses to climate change are very sensitive to current uncertainties in regional climate-change projections, and to the inclusion or not of time-lagged interacting taxa. We expect even stronger effects for more specialized plant-animal associations. Given the slow response time of woody plant distributions to climate change, current estimates of future biodiversity of many animal taxa may be both biased and too optimistic.
目前评估物种分布受气候影响变化的方法很少考虑物种相互作用，通常忽略了相互作用的分类群对气候变化的响应时间的潜在差异。在这里，我们使用了肯尼亚 1005 种繁殖鸟类和 1417 种木本植物的物种丰富度数据，并采用来自 15 种气候变化情景的回归模型的平均系数和中位数气候预测，来预测肯尼亚气候变化下鸟类物种丰富度的变化。预测假设木本植物和鸟类对气候变化的反应是即时的，这表明肯尼亚大部分地区未来鸟类物种丰富度将会增加，而预测假设木本植物对气候变化的反应明显滞后，这表明鸟类物种丰富度将会减少。对未来鸟类物种丰富度的预测不确定性具有地域结构，主要是由于对预测降水变化的不确定性。我们得出的结论是，对未来物种对气候变化的反应的评估非常敏感于区域气候变化预测中的当前不确定性，以及是否包括时间滞后的相互作用的分类群。我们预计，对于更专门的动植物关系，这种影响会更强烈。考虑到木本植物分布对气候变化的反应时间较慢，目前对许多动物类群未来生物多样性的估计可能存在偏差且过于乐观。
