Journal
ECOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 18, Issue 11, Pages 1139-1152Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/ele.12505
Keywords
demographic compensation; environmental gradient; geographical distribution; global climate change; life-history trade-off; negative correlations; population growth rate; range limit; sensitivity; vital rates
Categories
Funding
- U.S. National Science Foundation [DEB-0716433]
- Swedish Science Council (VR)
- Biology Dept., Duke University
- Spanish Government [CGL2010-21642, OAPN REF. 430/211]
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [1242355] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Environmental Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1242558] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Most species are exposed to significant environmental gradients across their ranges, but vital rates (survival, growth, reproduction and recruitment) need not respond in the same direction to those gradients. Opposing vital rate trends across environments, a phenomenon that has been loosely called demographic compensation', may allow species to occupy larger geographical ranges and alter their responses to climate change. Yet the term has never been precisely defined, nor has its existence or strength been assessed for multiple species. Here, we provide a rigorous definition, and use it to develop a strong test for demographic compensation. By applying the test to data from 26 published, multi-population demographic studies of plants, we show that demographic compensation commonly occurs. We also investigate the mechanisms by which this phenomenon arises by assessing which demographic processes and life stages are most often involved. In addition, we quantify the effect of demographic compensation on variation in population growth rates across environmental gradients, a potentially important determinant of the size of a species' geographical range. Finally, we discuss the implications of demographic compensation for the responses of single populations and species' ranges to temporal environmental variation and to ongoing environmental trends, e.g. due to climate change.
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