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Content archived on 2024-05-29

Modelling constraints on tree range shifts under climate change: regional and local processes

Objective

Global change is affecting the flora at levels from organism to ecosystems. Changes in population dynamics, phenology, and community composition as well as species range are well documented and will alter patterns of biodiversity in this century. Because forests are major sites for carbon storage, ongoing changes have important implications not only for forest products and biodiversity, but also for the global climate itself. Forecasting shifts in tree ranges have become a critical issue in biodiversity conservation and climatology, and calls upon an unresolved, classic question in ecology and biogeography: what factors and processes set limits to species distribution and abundance. Range shifts necessarily will be influenced by dispersal abilities at regional spatial scales, but in the end depend on availability of suitable habitats at local scales. Shifts in distribution can only be predicted accurately in consideration of species adaptation and environmental heterogeneity near the expanding edge of the range.

We will employ methods and perspectives from different fields to develop an integrative scaling framework linking ecological biogeography with processes in community ecology, to precisely identify ecological constraints on species distribution. We will adapt the model PHENOFIT to predict the climate-dependent potential ranges of North American trees. We will use novel statistical methods and field experiments to distinguish the roles of dispersal (neutral process) and adaptation (niche process) in local colonization at the expanding edge of the range. Finally, we will use a macro-ecological approach to quantify critical traits favouring colonization success. Such cross-scale, process-based analyses are the only way to accurately forecast shifts in tree distribution under climate warming. These forecasts are urgently needed to plan mitigation measures for climate change, forest management strategies, and policy on biodiversity conservation.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Topic(s)

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Call for proposal

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FP6-2005-MOBILITY-6
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Funding Scheme

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OIF - Marie Curie actions-Outgoing International Fellowships

Coordinator

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE-DÉLÉGATION LANGUEDOC-ROUSSILLON
EU contribution
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Total cost

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Participants (1)

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