The complexity of predicting climate-induced ecological impacts

Abstract

The anticipated future increases in global surface temperatures are likely to have major impacts on the distribution of species. Predicting future species' distributions is a key area of importance in research, which is largely being addressed through the use of climate envelope models. While climate envelope models may indicate the broad direction of likely changes in distribution, they fail to incorporate the non-climatic factors that are important determinants of species' distributions within their current range, which may mean that the observed response will differ greatly from these predictions. When considering specific species, these ecological details are likely to be extremely important, but their inclusion in predictive models is difficult. We illustrate the complexities of unravelling climate impacts on species distribution and population size using migratory shorebirds as an example.