We use bird distributions in non-forested coastal wetlands of the Great Lakes to illustrate a new, conceptually explicit method for developing biotic indicators. The procedure applies a probabilistic framework to derive an index that best “fits” an observed assemblage of species, based on preliminary information about species’ responses to human environmental disturbance. Among 215 coastal wetl...

Many species are expanding their distributions to higher latitudes due to global warming. Understanding the mechanisms underlying these distribution shifts is critical for better understanding the impacts of climate changes. The climate envelope approach is widely used to model and predict species distribution shifts with changing climates. Biotic interactions between species, however, may also...

Climate change is expected to increase climate variability and the occurrence of extreme climatic events, with potentially devastating effects on aquatic ecosystems. However, little is known about the role of climate extremes in structuring aquatic communities or the interplay between climate and local abiotic and biotic factors. Here, we examine the relative influence of climate and local abio...

We outline here an approach for understanding the biology of climate change, one that integrates data at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Taxon-free trait analysis, or "ecometrics," is based on the idea that the distribution in a community of ecomorphological traits such as tooth structure, limb proportions, body mass, leaf shape, incubation temperature, claw shape, any aspect of anatomy o...

Abstract Topoclimatic models use topographic descriptors (elevation, slope, aspect, landscape position...) as primary input to build climatic surfaces that describe spatial and temporal patterns of such physical factors as temperature, incoming solar radiation (insolation), precipitation, soil moisture, and evapotranspiration. Topoclimatic habitat models translate these physical factors into in...

Phytoplankton are the base of the Antarctic food web, sustain the wealth and diversity of life for which Antarctica is renowned, and play a critical role in biogeochemical cycles that mediate global climate. Over the vast expanse of the Southern Ocean (SO), the climate is variously predicted to experience increased warming, strengthening wind, acidification, shallowingmixed layer depths, increa...

The complex interplay between the abiotic and biotic components of plant communities is precisely whatmakes them so fascinating to study. This complexity, however, is also what makes building predictive models of plant responses to climate change particularly difficult. Prediction into the novel environmental conditions that climate change brings requires mechanistic understanding of the scalin...

Biotic interactions present a challenge in determining whether species distributions will track climate change. Interactions with competitors, consumers, mutualists, and facilitators can strongly influence local species distributions, but few studies assess how and whether these interactions will impede or accelerate climate change-induced range shifts. In this paper, we explore how ecologists ...