Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
Center for Biodiversity and Global Change, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
Glob Chang Biol. 2024 Jul;30(7):e17408. doi: 10.1111/gcb.17408.
The geographic redistributions of species due to a rapidly changing climate are poised to perturb ecological communities and significantly impact ecosystems and human livelihoods. Effectively managing these biological impacts requires a thorough understanding of the patterns and processes of species geographic range shifts. While substantial recent redistributions have been identified and recognized to vary by taxon, region, and range geometry, there are large gaps and biases in the available evidence. Here, we use the largest compilation of geographic range change observations to date, comprised of 33,016 potential redistributions across 12,009 species, to formally assess within- and cross-species coverage and biases and to motivate future data collection. We find that species coverage varies strongly by taxon and underrepresents species at high and low latitudes. Within species, assessments of potential redistributions came from parts of their geographic range that were highly uneven and non-representative. For most species and taxa, studies were strongly biased toward the colder parts of species' distributions and thus significantly underrepresented populations that might get pushed beyond their maximum temperature limits. Coverage of potential leading and trailing geographic range edges under a changing climate was similarly uneven. Only 8% of studied species were assessed at both high and low latitude and elevation range edges, with most only covered at one edge. This suggests that substantial within-species biases exacerbate the considerable geographic and taxonomic among-species unevenness in evidence. Our results open the door for a more quantitative accounting for existing knowledge biases in climate change ecology and a more informed management and conservation. Our findings offer guidance for future data collection that better addresses information gaps and provides a more effective foundation for managing the biological impacts of climate change.
由于快速变化的气候，物种的地理分布正在重新分配，这将扰乱生态群落，并对生态系统和人类生计产生重大影响。有效管理这些生物影响需要深入了解物种地理分布范围变化的模式和过程。尽管最近已经确定并认识到大量的重新分布，这些重新分布因分类群、地区和分布范围的几何形状而异，但现有的证据存在很大的差距和偏见。在这里，我们使用迄今为止最大的地理分布变化观测数据集，其中包含 12009 个物种的 33016 个潜在重新分布，来正式评估种内和种间的覆盖范围和偏差，并激发未来的数据收集。我们发现，物种的覆盖范围因分类群而异，高纬度和低纬度的物种代表性不足。在种内，对潜在重新分布的评估来自其地理分布范围的部分地区，这些地区的分布非常不均匀且不具代表性。对于大多数物种和分类群来说，研究强烈偏向于物种分布的较冷部分，因此显著低估了可能超出其最高温度限制的种群。在气候变化下，潜在的主导和尾随地理分布边缘的覆盖范围也同样不均匀。只有 8%的研究物种在高纬度和低纬度以及海拔分布范围的边缘都进行了评估，大多数物种只在一个边缘进行了评估。这表明，在物种内部存在很大的偏差，加剧了在证据中存在的相当大的地理和分类群间的不均匀性。我们的研究结果为气候变化生态学中现有知识偏差的更定量核算以及更明智的管理和保护开辟了道路。我们的研究结果为未来的数据收集提供了指导，这些数据收集更好地解决了信息差距，并为管理气候变化的生物影响提供了更有效的基础。
