Non-climatic controls on tree species distributions under climate change

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The long-term goal of my research program is to investigate tree species response to climate change as expressed by the expansion, or lack thereof, of their geographic distributions, with a particular focus on the role non-climatic factors play in that response. Predicting the distribution of future species under climate change is one of the greatest scientific challenges we currently face. Usually, scientists try to address this challenge by looking at the direct links between climate and species distributions; however, the effects of non-climatic factors, such as soil conditions or species interactions, can sometimes override climate effects, requiring field experimentation to tease out their individual contributions. My recent research has shown that non-climatic factors, such as seed predation and soil organisms, have an overriding effect on tree species distribution limits under climate change, which can change across life stages. I’ve also shown that landscape-scale disturbances, such as fires, can spur a species’ distributional response to climate change. Over the next five years, my short-term goal is to further advance our understanding of non-climatic controls on species distributions by conducting explicit experiments addressing: