Agronomy and Horticulture, Department of
ORCID IDs
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8716-0423
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
2019
Citation
The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2019
Abstract
In the present era of rapid global change, development of early warnings of ecological regime shifts is a major focus in ecology. Identifying and tracking shifts in spatial regimes is a new approach with potential to enhance understanding of ecological responses to global change. Here, we show strong directional non-stationarity of spatial regimes identified by avian community body mass data. We do this by tracking 46 years of avian spatial regime movement in the North American Great Plains. The northernmost spatial regime boundary moved >590 km northward, and the southernmost boundary moved >260 km northward. Tracking spatial regimes affords decadal planning horizons and moves beyond the predominately temporal early warnings of the past by providing spatiotemporally explicit detection of regime shifts in systems without fixed boundaries.
Included in
Agricultural Science Commons, Agriculture Commons, Agronomy and Crop Sciences Commons, Botany Commons, Horticulture Commons, Other Plant Sciences Commons, Plant Biology Commons
Comments
Nature Climate Change | VOL 9 562 | JULY 2019 | 562–566 | www.nature.com/natureclimatechange