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，广泛的脊椎动物、无脊椎动物和植物物种平均已将其分布向两极和高海拔地区转移。然而，个别物种的范围扩张率差别很大。这种变化的来源尚不清楚，但如果我们要了解物种分布的基本限制，确定需要采取保护行动的物种，从而制定基于证据的保护策略，那么研究这种变化是至关重要的。拟议的研究将评估为什么物种在过去40年里在其前沿（高纬度）范围边界移动的速度和方向上发生变化。我们的方法将首先关注气候因素是否解释了大多数观察到的变化，然后考虑栖息地因素，使用可以在许多物种和分类群中计算和测试的解释变量。我们将评估范围扩展的变化是否主要由单个物种对当地气候不同成分的敏感性变化决定。然后，我们将讨论是否有合适的栖息地可供殖民，以及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异，我们将考虑分散和其他物种的属性（体型、发育模式），这些属性可能会影响物种在具有适当栖息地的气候适宜地区定居的可能性。我们将利用现有的大量数据集来研究过去四十年气候变暖的范围变化。我们的研究将主要以鳞翅目为重点模型分类单元（约135种研究物种）。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分类群的约300个物种，并通过探索物种内扩张率变化的来源（通过项目博士研究生）来测试我们发现的更广泛意义。该项目有潜力对物种范围边界动态的基本理解发展到一个新的水平，并确定限制物种对气候变化的特定反应的因素。这项研究的成果也将导致未来气候变化下生物多样性的循证保护策略的发展。

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.