Shifting avian spatial regimes in a changing climate

Abstract

In the present era of rapid global change, development of early warnings of ecological regime shifts is a major focus in ecology. Identifying and tracking shifts in spatial regimes is a new approach with potential to enhance understanding of ecological responses to global change. Here, we show strong directional non-stationarity of spatial regimes identified by avian community body mass data. We do this by tracking 46 years of avian spatial regime movement in the North American Great Plains. The northernmost spatial regime boundary moved >590 km northward, and the southernmost boundary moved >260 km northward. Tracking spatial regimes affords decadal planning horizons and moves beyond the predominately temporal early warnings of the past by providing spatiotemporally explicit detection of regime shifts in systems without fixed boundaries.

Published in

Nature Climate Change
2019, Volume: 9, number: 7, pages: 562-566
Publisher: NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP

SLU Authors

• Angeler, David

  • Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG13 Climate action


UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0517-6

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/100940