Environmental variation and population responses to global change

Callum R. Lawson*, Yngvild Vindenes, Liam Bailey, Martijn van de Pol

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    153 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Species' responses to environmental changes such as global warming are affected not only by trends in mean conditions, but also by natural and human-induced environmental fluctuations. Methods are needed to predict how such environmental variation affects ecological and evolutionary processes, in order to design effective strategies to conserve biodiversity under global change. Here, we review recent theoretical and empirical studies to assess: (1) how populations respond to changes in environmental variance, and (2) how environmental variance affects population responses to changes in mean conditions. Contrary to frequent claims, empirical studies show that increases in environmental variance can increase as well as decrease long-term population growth rates. Moreover, environmental variance can alter and even reverse the effects of changes in the mean environment, such that even if environmental variance remains constant, omitting it from population models compromises their ability to predict species' responses to changes in mean conditions. Drawing on theory relating these effects of environmental variance to the curvatures of population growth responses to the environment, we outline how species' traits such as phylogenetic history and body mass could be used to predict their responses to global change under future environmental variability.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)724-736
    Number of pages13
    JournalEcology Letters
    Volume18
    Issue number7
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2015

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