TY - JOUR
T1 - Behavioural, ecological and evolutionary responses to extreme climatic events
T2 - Challenges and directions
AU - Van de Pol, Martijn
AU - Jenouvrier, Stéphanie
AU - Cornelissen, Johannes H.C.
AU - Visser, Marcel E.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/6/19
Y1 - 2017/6/19
N2 - More extreme climatic events (ECEs) are among the most prominent consequences of climate change. Despite a long-standing recognition of the importance of ECEs by paleo-ecologists and macro-evolutionary biologists, ECEs have only recently received a strong interest in the wider ecological and evolutionary community. However, as with many rapidly expanding fields, it lacks structure and cohesiveness, which strongly limits scientific progress. Furthermore, due to the descriptive and anecdotal nature of many ECE studies it is still unclear what the most relevant questions and long-term consequences are of ECEs. To improve synthesis, we first discuss ways to define ECEs that facilitate comparison among studies. We then argue that biologists should adhere to more rigorous attribution and mechanistic methods to assess ECE impacts. Subsequently, we discuss conceptual and methodological links with climatology and disturbance-, tipping point- and paleo-ecology. These research fields have close linkages with ECE research, but differ in the identity and/or the relative severity of environmental factors. Bysummarizing the contributionsto this theme issue we draw parallels between behavioural, ecological and evolutionary ECE studies, and suggest that an over-arching challenge is that most empirical and theoretical evidence points towards responses being highly idiosyncratic, and thus predictability being low. Finally, we suggest a roadmap based on the proposition that an increased focus on the mechanisms behind the biological response function will be crucial for increased understanding and predictability of the impacts of ECE. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Behavioural, ecological and evolutionary responses to extreme climatic events’.
AB - More extreme climatic events (ECEs) are among the most prominent consequences of climate change. Despite a long-standing recognition of the importance of ECEs by paleo-ecologists and macro-evolutionary biologists, ECEs have only recently received a strong interest in the wider ecological and evolutionary community. However, as with many rapidly expanding fields, it lacks structure and cohesiveness, which strongly limits scientific progress. Furthermore, due to the descriptive and anecdotal nature of many ECE studies it is still unclear what the most relevant questions and long-term consequences are of ECEs. To improve synthesis, we first discuss ways to define ECEs that facilitate comparison among studies. We then argue that biologists should adhere to more rigorous attribution and mechanistic methods to assess ECE impacts. Subsequently, we discuss conceptual and methodological links with climatology and disturbance-, tipping point- and paleo-ecology. These research fields have close linkages with ECE research, but differ in the identity and/or the relative severity of environmental factors. Bysummarizing the contributionsto this theme issue we draw parallels between behavioural, ecological and evolutionary ECE studies, and suggest that an over-arching challenge is that most empirical and theoretical evidence points towards responses being highly idiosyncratic, and thus predictability being low. Finally, we suggest a roadmap based on the proposition that an increased focus on the mechanisms behind the biological response function will be crucial for increased understanding and predictability of the impacts of ECE. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Behavioural, ecological and evolutionary responses to extreme climatic events’.
KW - Attribution
KW - Biological response function
KW - Climate variability
KW - Definition
KW - Idiosyncratic responses
KW - Mechanism
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85019157563&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1098/rstb.2016.0134
DO - 10.1098/rstb.2016.0134
M3 - Article
SN - 0962-8436
VL - 372
JO - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
JF - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
IS - 1723
M1 - 20160134
ER -