Timescale-dependent response of vegetation to climate change

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Authors

David Fastovich, Stephen Meyers, Erin E Saupe, John Warren Williams , Maria Dornelas, Elizabeth M. Dowding, Seth Finnegan, Huai-Hsuan M. Huang, Lukas Jonkers, Wolfgang Kiessling, Ádám T Kocsis, Qijian Li, Lee Hsiang Liow, Lin Na, Amelia M Penny, Kate Pippenger, Johan Renaudie, Marina C Rillo, Jansen Smith, Manuel J. Steinbauer, Mauro Sugawara, Adam Tomašovỳch, Moriaki Yasuhara, Pincelli Hull

Abstract

Climate and ecosystems exhibit dynamic behavior across various timescales, but existing studies often focus on singular timescales when examining ecosystem responses to climate. Here we develop a conceptual and analytical framework using spectral analysis that examines a continuum of timescales, from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of years. By comparing power spectra of vegetation turnover and climate in the last 1.1 million years, we observe that turnover is in step with climate at intermediate frequencies (10-2 to 10-3 years-1) but is decoupled from climate at high frequencies (> 10-2 years-1) and low frequencies (<10-3 years-1), with a relationship that varies by latitude. Climate decoupling at the highest frequencies highlights the possibility of widespread ecological transitions in the coming century as anthropogenic climate change outpaces the response time of plant communities.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31223/X5S98P

Subjects

Earth Sciences

Keywords

Spectral power continuum, community turnover, climate variability, dynamic equilibrium, non-linear ecological dynamics, temporal beta diversity, Vegetation, community turnover, Climate variability, dynamic equilibrium, non-linear ecological dynamics, temporal beta diversity, Vegetation

Dates

Published: 2024-07-12 08:27

Last Updated: 2024-07-12 15:27

License

CC-By Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Additional Metadata

Data Availability (Reason not available):
Data and code needed to reproduce all analyses are available on Zenodo (doi: 10.5281/zenodo.12726799).