Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research CCR, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA.
Am J Bot. 2013 Jul;100(7):1255-65. doi: 10.3732/ajb.1300043. Epub 2013 Jul 3.
Predicting species responses to climate change has become a dynamic field in global change research. A crucial question in this debate is whether-or-not species have been and will be able to respond quickly enough to keep up with changing climatic conditions.
Focusing on fossil pollen records and paleoclimatic simulations, this work assesses the change in realized climatic niches (climatic temporal trajectories) of 20 plant taxa over the last 16000 yr, and whether this tracking has been the same for different climatic niche dimensions.
Climatic factors showed a consistent trend toward warmer temperatures and higher precipitation. Although the response types varied across taxa, species' realized climatic niches lagged in response to changes in climatic conditions. Temperature niches responded to late Pleistocene (16000-11000 yr ago) climate change, but did so at slower rates than changes in climatic conditions during the same period. In contrast, precipitation niches were relatively stable from 16000 to 11000 yr ago, but still lagged behind changes in climatic conditions. Changes in temperature and precipitation niches eventually stabilized during the Holocene (11000-1000 yr ago).
These results underscore how the climatic niche realized at any one moment represents a subset of the climate conditions in which a taxon can persist, particularly during times of fast climatic change. Variability in the rates of temporal trajectories across evaluated climatic variables showed taxa specific responses to changes in climatic conditions over time and emphasizes the need to incorporate variation, intensity, and duration of lag effects in assessments of the possible effects of climatic change.
预测物种对气候变化的响应已成为全球变化研究中的一个活跃领域。在这场争论中，一个关键问题是，物种是否已经并且能够足够迅速地做出响应，以跟上不断变化的气候条件。
本研究聚焦于化石花粉记录和古气候模拟，评估了过去 16000 年来 20 种植物类群的实现气候生态位（气候时间轨迹）的变化情况，以及不同气候生态位维度的跟踪情况是否相同。
气候因素表现出温度升高和降水增加的一致趋势。尽管不同类群的响应类型存在差异，但物种的实现气候生态位对气候条件的变化存在滞后。温度生态位对更新世晚期（16000-11000 年前）的气候变化做出了响应，但响应速度比同期气候条件的变化要慢。相比之下，降水生态位在 16000 到 11000 年前相对稳定，但仍滞后于气候条件的变化。温度和降水生态位的变化最终在全新世（11000-1000 年前）稳定下来。
这些结果强调了任何一个时刻实现的气候生态位如何代表一个类群能够持续存在的气候条件的子集，尤其是在快速气候变化时期。评估的气候变量的时间轨迹的变异性显示出随着时间的推移，类群对气候条件变化的特定响应，并强调在评估气候变化可能影响时需要纳入滞后效应的变异性、强度和持续时间。
