US-Canada Planning Visit: Building a Transboundary Research Program to Understand the Influence of Climate Change on Southern Range Limits

气候变化将深刻影响地球上物种的分布和丰富程度。随着气候变暖，适应寒冷的物种可能特别倾向于收缩其分布的南部边缘，但我们对这一群体可能发生的范围变化的理解是不完整的。在北美，由于许多适应寒冷的物种的活动范围位于美国-加拿大边境，因此解决这些对南方种群的影响也变得更加复杂。美国和加拿大将在该项目基础上开展一项联合研究合作，研究气候变化对加拿大南部猞猁种群的影响。该项目将通过提供对受威胁捕食者对气候变化反应的改进预测，在增加我们对物种地理范围限制的知识以及应用保护相关性方面具有理论意义。此外，这种跨界合作将增加加拿大猞猁后续研究的范围和重要性，并为跨境研究提供一个可应用于其他物种的模式。预测气候变化对物种分布和丰富程度的影响仍然是生态学的一个关键挑战。预测物种的范围在未来如何根据气候条件的变化而变化的简单模型通常被应用，但这些模型往往是不准确的，因为它们缺乏生态现实性。预测物种对气候变化的反应的挑战在物种的南部范围范围内尤其困难，那里对气候变化的影响知之甚少而且很复杂。该项目的最终目标是研究气候、生物相互作用（竞争和捕食）和种群空间结构对加拿大猞猁南部活动范围的影响。这一国际合作将建立一个高度协调的专家团队，具有互补的专业知识和数据集，这将使有意义的跨界研究和保护成为可能。因此，从项目中产生的产品将为研究策略提供指导方针，这将为南方猞猁种群的生物学提供新的见解。

Climate change will profoundly influence the distribution and abundance of species across the planet. Cold-adapted species may be especially prone to retract their range at the southern edge of their distribution as the climate warms, but our understanding of possible range shifts for this group is incomplete. Within North America, addressing these effects on these southern populations is additionally complicated by the fact that southern range limits for many cold-adapted species fall along the U.S.-Canada border. A joint U.S.-Canada research collaboration that addresses the influence of climate change on southern populations of Canada lynx will develop from this project. This project will have theoretical significance in terms of increasing our knowledge regarding what limits the geographic range of species, as well as applied conservation relevance, by providing improved predictions of response to climate change for a threatened predator. Moreover, this transboundary collaboration will increase the scope and importance of subsequent research on Canada lynx, as well as provide a model for cross-border research that can be applied to other species.Predicting the consequences of a changing climate for the distribution and abundance of species remains a key challenge in ecology. Simple models that predict how the range of a species will shift in the future based on changing climatic conditions are commonly applied, but such models are often inaccurate because they lack ecological realism. The challenge of predicting species response to climate change is particularly difficult at the southern range limits of species, where climate change impacts are poorly understood and complex. The ultimate goal of this project will be to examine the influence of climate, biotic interactions (competition and predation), and population spatial structure on southern range limits of Canada lynx. This international collaboration will build a highly coordinated team of experts, with complementary expertise and datasets, which will allow for meaningful transboundary research and conservation. As a result, the products that emerge from the project will provide guidelines for a research strategy that will furnish new insights into the biology of southern lynx populations.