Abstract
Global mean temperatures have increased by 0.72 ^circ C since the 1950s, and climate warming is resulting in geographical shifts in the range limits of many species. Climate velocity is estimated to be 0.42 km/year, and if a species fails to adapt to the new climate, it must track the location of its climatically constrained niche in order to survive. Dispersal has an important role to play in enabling a population to shift is geographical range limits, but many species are partially sedentary, with only a fraction of the population dispersing each year. We ask, can partially sedentary populations keep pace with climate or will such populations be more vulnerable to extinction? Through the development of a moving-habitat integrodifference equation model, we show that, provided climate velocity is not too large, partially sedentary populations can outperform fully dispersing populations in one of two ways: (i) by persisting at climate speeds where a fully dispersing population cannot, and (ii) exhibiting higher population densities. Moreover, we find that positive density-dependent dispersal can further improve the likelihood a population can persist. Our results highlight the positive role that non-dispersers may play in mitigating the effects of overdispersal and facilitating population persistence in a warming world.
Highlights
Climate warming is occurring across the globe (Easterling et al 1997; Stocker et al 2013), with a projected future increase in temperature of 0.2 ◦C per decade over the 30 years (IPCC 2018)
We focus our attention on the first of these, as there is a growing body of evidence that range shifts have occurred across many taxa world wide (Walther et al 2002; Kerr et al 2015), but we still have an incomplete understanding of what species traits facilitate the tracking of climate-induced range shifts
For some species only a fraction of the population disperses each generation, such as plant populations with seed banks, which puts constraints on the dispersal ability of the population as a whole. Would these partially sedentary species be among the first to be threatened with extinction under climate warming if they failed to adapt in other ways? In this paper, we use mathematical modelling to address this question and explore conditions for extinction or survival for these partially dispersing populations
Summary
Climate warming is occurring across the globe (Easterling et al 1997; Stocker et al 2013), with a projected future increase in temperature of 0.2 ◦C per decade over the 30 years (IPCC 2018). For some species only a fraction of the population disperses each generation, such as plant populations with seed banks, which puts constraints on the dispersal ability of the population as a whole Would these partially sedentary species be among the first to be threatened with extinction under climate warming if they failed to adapt in other ways? Bridging the gap between empirical studies and these mathematical models, (Leroux et al 2013) successfully combined the RDEs with the habitat suitability approach to provide a more predictive tool for assessing the impact of climate-induced range shifts. The presence of non-moving life stages results in a population where only a fraction disperse, and while large climate shifts result in extinction of these partially sedentary populations, it is not clear what would happen under less severe climate scenarios. Crustaceans frequently have an adult life stage that is
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