VARIABLE RATES OF RESPONSE BY SPECIES TO CLIMATE CHANGE

最近关于气候变暖的生态后果的研究表明，范围广泛的脊椎动物、无脊椎动物和植物物种平均而言已将其分布向两极和更高的海拔转移。然而，个别物种在其范围扩张的速度上差异很大。这种变异的来源尚不清楚，但如果我们要了解物种分布的基本限制，确定需要保护行动的物种，从而制定基于证据的保护策略，那么研究是至关重要的。拟议中的研究将评估为什么物种在过去40年中其前沿（高纬度）范围边界发生变化的速度和方向不同。我们的方法将首先关注气候因素是否可以解释大部分观察到的变化，然后考虑栖息地因素，使用可以在许多物种和类群中计算和测试的解释变量。我们将评估分布区扩展的变化是否主要取决于个体物种对当地气候不同成分的敏感性变化。然后，我们将讨论是否有合适的栖息地可供殖民，因此，这是否会额外影响物种的反应速度。对于任何剩余的无法解释的变化，我们将考虑传播和其他物种的属性（体型，发育模式），这些属性可能会影响物种在包含适当栖息地的气候适宜地区定居的可能性。我们将利用广泛的数据集来研究过去四十年气候变暖的范围变化。我们的研究将主要使用鳞翅目作为我们的重点模式分类群（约135个研究物种）。我们将通过将我们的研究扩展到来自约14个脊椎动物和无脊椎动物类群的>300个物种，并通过探索物种内扩张率变化的来源（通过项目博士生奖学金）来测试我们发现的更广泛意义。该项目有可能对物种分布范围的动态发展一种新的基本理解水平，并确定限制物种对气候变化的反应的因素。这项研究的成果还将导致在未来气候变化下制定以证据为基础的生物多样性保护战略。

Recent research on the ecological consequences of climate warming has demonstrated that a wide range of vertebrate, invertebrate and plant species have, on average, shifted their distributions towards the poles and to higher elevations. However, individual species vary greatly in their rates of range expansion. The source of this variation is unknown, but is vital to study if we are to understand the fundamental limits on species' distributions, to identify those species that require conservation action, and thereby to devise evidence-based conservation strategies. The proposed research will evaluate why species vary in the rates and directions that their leading-edge (high latitude) range boundaries have shifted over the past 40 years. Our approach will be to focus first on whether climate factors explain most of the observed variation, and then consider habitat factors, using explanatory variables that can be computed and tested across many species and taxa. We will evaluate whether variation in range expansion is determined primarily by variation in the sensitivities of individual species to different components of local climate. We will then address whether suitable habitats are available to colonise, and hence whether this additionally affects species' rates of response. For any remaining unexplained variation, we will then consider dispersal and other species' attributes (body size, development patterns) that might affect the likelihood of species colonising climatically-suitable areas that contain appropriate habitats. We will capitalise on extensive data sets available to examine range changes over the past four decades of climate warming. Our research will primarily use Lepidoptera as our focal model taxon (~ 135 study species). We will test the broader significance of our findings by extending our studies to >300 species from ~14 vertebrate and invertebrate taxa, and by exploring sources of within-species variation in expansion rates (via project PhD studentships). The project has the potential to develop a novel level of fundamental understanding of the dynamics of species' range boundaries and to identify factors constraining species-specific responses to climate change. Outputs from this research will also lead to the development of evidence-based conservation strategies for biodiversity under future climate change.