Journal
ECOLOGY
Volume 84, Issue 9, Pages 2444-2453Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1890/02-0266
Keywords
arthropods; climate sensitivity; community; functional groups; grasslands; plants; trophic levels
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Predicting the response of communities to climate change is a major challenge for ecology. Communities may well not respond as entities but be disrupted, particularly if trophic levels respond differently, but as yet there is no evidence for differential responses from natural systems. We therefore analyzed unusually detailed plant and animal data collected over 20 years from two grassland communities to determine whether functional group climate sensitivity differed between trophic levels. We found that sensitivity increases significantly with increasing trophic level. This differential sensitivity would lead to community destabilization under climate change, not simple geographical shifts, and consequently must be incorporated in predictive ecological. climate models.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available