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1. Climate Disruption of Plant-Microbe Interactions

   https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-011720-090819  

   Rudgers, Jennifer A.; Afkhami, Michelle E.; Bell-Dereske, Lukas; Chung, Y. Anny; Crawford, Kerri M.; Kivlin, Stephanie N.; Mann, Michael A.; Nuñez, Martin A. (November 2020, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics)

   null (Ed.)

   Interactions between plants and microbes have important influences on evolutionary processes, population dynamics, community structure, and ecosystem function. We review the literature to document how climate change may disrupt these ecological interactions and develop a conceptual framework to integrate the pathways of plant-microbe responses to climate over different scales in space and time. We then create a blueprint to aid generalization that categorizes climate effects into changes in the context dependency of plant-microbe pairs, temporal mismatches and altered feedbacks over time, or spatial mismatches that accompany species range shifts. We pair a new graphical model of how plant-microbe interactions influence resistance to climate change with a statistical approach to predictthe consequences of increasing variability in climate. Finally, we suggest pathways through which plant-microbe interactions can affect resilience during recovery from climate disruption. Throughout, we take a forward-looking perspective, highlighting knowledge gaps and directions for future research. 

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2. Range edges in heterogeneous landscapes: Integrating geographic scale and climate complexity into range dynamics

   https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14897  

   Oldfather, Meagan F.; Kling, Matthew M.; Sheth, Seema N.; Emery, Nancy C.; Ackerly, David D. (December 2019, Global Change Biology)

   Abstract The impacts of climate change have re‐energized interest in understanding the role of climate in setting species geographic range edges. Despite the strong focus on species' distributions in ecology and evolution, defining a species range edge is theoretically and empirically difficult. The challenge of determining a range edge and its relationship to climate is in part driven by the nested nature of geography and the multidimensionality of climate, which together generate complex patterns of both climate and biotic distributions across landscapes. Because range‐limiting processes occur in both geographic and climate space, the relationship between these two spaces plays a critical role in setting range limits. With both conceptual and empirical support, we argue that three factors—climate heterogeneity, collinearity among climate variables, and spatial scale—interact to shape the spatial structure of range edges along climate gradients, and we discuss several ways that these factors influence the stability of species range edges with a changing climate. We demonstrate that geographic and climate edges are often not concordant across species ranges. Furthermore, high climate heterogeneity and low climate collinearity across landscapes increase the spectrum of possible relationships between geographic and climatic space, suggesting that geographic range edges and climatic niche limits correspond less frequently than we may expect. More empirical explorations of how the complexity of real landscapes shapes the ecological and evolutionary processes that determine species range edges will advance the development of range limit theory and its applications to biodiversity conservation in the context of changing climate. 

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3. Reorganization of seagrass communities in a changing climate

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-023-01445-6  

   Daru, Barnabas_H; Rock, Brianna_M (June 2023, Nature Plants)

   Abstract Although climate change projections indicate significant threats to terrestrial biodiversity, the effects are much more profound and striking in the marine environment. Here we explore how different facets of locally distinctiveα- andβ-diversity (changes in spatial composition) of seagrasses will respond to future climate change scenarios across the globe and compare their coverage with the existing network of marine protected areas. By using species distribution modelling and a dated phylogeny, we predict widespread reductions in species’ range sizes that will result in increases in seagrass weighted and phylogenetic endemism. These projected increases of endemism will result in divergent shifts in the spatial composition ofβ-diversity leading to differentiation in some areas and the homogenization of seagrass communities in other regions. Regardless of the climate scenario, the potential hotspots of these projected shifts in seagrassα- andβ-diversity are predicted to occur outside the current network of marine protected areas, providing new priority areas for future conservation planning that incorporate seagrasses. Our findings report responses of species to future climate for a group that is currently under represented in climate change assessments yet crucial in maintaining marine food chains and providing habitat for a wide range of marine biodiversity. 

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4. Body size and food–web interactions mediate species range shifts under warming

   https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.2755  

   Tekwa, E. W.; Watson, James R.; Pinsky, Malin L. (April 2022, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)

   Species ranges are shifting in response to climate change, but most predictions disregard food–web interactions and, in particular, if and how such interactions change through time. Predator–prey interactions could speed up species range shifts through enemy release or create lags through biotic resistance. Here, we developed a spatially explicit model of interacting species, each with a thermal niche and embedded in a size-structured food–web across a temperature gradient that was then exposed to warming. We also created counterfactual single species models to contrast and highlight the effect of trophic interactions on range shifts. We found that dynamic trophic interactions hampered species range shifts across 450 simulated food–webs with up to 200 species each over 200 years of warming. All species experiencing dynamic trophic interactions shifted more slowly than single-species models would predict. In addition, the trailing edges of larger bodied species ranges shifted especially slowly because of ecological subsidies from small shifting prey. Trophic interactions also reduced the numbers of locally novel species, novel interactions and productive species, thus maintaining historical community compositions for longer. Current forecasts ignoring dynamic food–web interactions and allometry may overestimate species' tendency to track climate change. 

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5. Skilful decadal-scale prediction of fish habitat and distribution shifts

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30280-0  

   Payne, Mark R.; Danabasoglu, Gokhan; Keenlyside, Noel; Matei, Daniela; Miesner, Anna K.; Yang, Shuting; Yeager, Stephen G. (December 2022, Nature Communications)

   Abstract Many fish and marine organisms are responding to our planet’s changing climate by shifting their distribution. Such shifts can drive international conflicts and are highly problematic for the communities and businesses that depend on these living marine resources. Advances in climate prediction mean that in some regions the drivers of these shifts can be forecast up to a decade ahead, although forecasts of distribution shifts on this critical time-scale, while highly sought after by stakeholders, have yet to materialise. Here, we demonstrate the application of decadal-scale climate predictions to the habitat and distribution of marine fish species. We show statistically significant forecast skill of individual years that outperform baseline forecasts 3–10 years ahead; forecasts of multi-year averages perform even better, yielding correlation coefficients in excess of 0.90 in some cases. We also demonstrate that the habitat shifts underlying conflicts over Atlantic mackerel fishing rights could have been foreseen. Our results show that climate predictions can provide information of direct relevance to stakeholders on the decadal-scale. This tool will be critical in foreseeing, adapting to and coping with the challenges of a changing future climate, particularly in the most ocean-dependent nations and communities. 

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