Climatic Suitability Derived from Species Distribution Models Captures Community Responses to an Extreme Drought Episode

• Published in: Ecosystems (New York) Vol. 22; no. 1; pp. 77 - 90
• Main Authors: Navarro, María Ángeles Pérez, Sapes, Gerard, Batllori, Enric, Serra-Diaz, Josep Maria, Esteve, Miguel Angel, Lloret, Francisco
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer Science + Business Media 01-01-2019; Springer US; Springer; Springer Nature B.V; Springer Verlag
• Subjects: Analysis; Animal behavior; Arid regions; Biodiversity and Ecology; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomes; Canopies; Climate change; Drought; Ecology; Environmental Management; Environmental Sciences; Extreme drought; Extreme values; Geoecology/Natural Processes; Global temperature changes; Hydrologic models; Hydrology; Hydrology/Water Resources; Life Sciences; Modelling; Niches; Original Articles; Plant Sciences; Populations; Species; Statistical analysis; Variation; Zoology; SDMs; drought resistance; niche; extreme climatic events; climatic suitability; dieback
• ISSN: 1432-9840; 1435-0629
• DOI: 10.1007/s10021-018-0254-0

The differential responses of co-occurring species in rich communities to climate change—particularly to drought episodes—have been fairly unexplored. Species distribution models (SDMs) are used to assess changes in species suitability under environmental shifts, but whether they can portray population and community responses is largely undetermined, especially in relation to extreme events. Here we studied a shrubland community in SE Spain because this region constitutes an ecotone between the Mediterranean biome and subtropical arid areas, and it has recently suffered its driest hydrological year on record. We used four different modeling algorithms (Mahalanobis distance, GAM, BRT, and MAXENT) to estimate species’ climatic suitability before (1950–2000) and during the extreme drought. For each SDM, we related species’ climatic suitability with their remaining green canopy as a proxy for species resistance to drought. We consistently found a positive correlation between remaining green canopy and species’ climatic suitability before the event. This relationship supports the hypothesis of a higher vulnerability of populations living closer to their species’ limits of aridity tolerance. Contrastingly, climatic suitability during the drought did not correlate with remaining green canopy, likely because the exceptional episode led to almost zero suitability values. Overall, our approach highlights climatic niche modeling as a robust approach to standardizing and comparing the behavior of different co-occurring species facing strong climatic fluctuations. Although many processes contribute to resistance to climatic extremes, the results confirm the relevance of populations’ position in the species’ climatic niche for explaining sensitivity to climate change.