Abstract

Species interactions are known to structure ecological communities. Still, the influence of climate change on biodiversity has primarily been evaluated by correlating individual species distributions with local climatic descriptors, then extrapolating into future climate scenarios. We ask whether predictions on arctic arthropod response to climate change can be improved by accounting for species interactions. For this, we use a 14-year-long, weekly time series from Greenland, resolved to the species level by mitogenome mapping. During the study period, temperature increased by 2 degrees C and arthropod species richness halved. We show that with abiotic variables alone, we are essentially unable to predict species responses, but with species interactions included, the predictive power of the models improves considerably. Cascading trophic effects thereby emerge as important in structuring biodiversity response to climate change. Given the need to scale up from species-level to community-level projections of biodiversity change, these results represent a major step forward for predictive ecology.

Keywords

Arctic; Arthropoda; climate change; community assembly; food web; joint species distribution model; trophic cascade

Published in

Ecography
2021, Volume: 44, number: 6, pages: 885-896
Publisher: WILEY

SLU Authors

• Roslin, Tomas

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • University of Helsinki

Sustainable Development Goals

Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts


UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology
Climate Research


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.05547

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/111265