Biology subjects

Felton, A. J.

Publications and source records attributed to Felton, A. J..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Primary productivity declines when species composition and climate are mismatched

Climate change drives shifts in species composition, but turnover in many communities lags behind the current pace of change. Anticipating the impact of the resulting community-climate disequilibria on ecosystem functioning is critical. Present-day communities may already be out of equilibrium with climate, providing an opportunity to estimate the effects of disequilibrium before they become more widespread. We analyzed plant community composition and function data from [~]60,000 rangeland monitoring sites across the western US to measure how community-climate disequilibrium contributes to spatial and temporal variation in net primary productivity (NPP) - a key ecosystem function. We found that communities were already substantially out of equilibrium with climate and accounting for this disequilibrium helped explain patterns of NPP. Communities farthest from equilibrium were less productive than those that were closely matched with climate. Our findings suggest that future increases in community-climate disequilibrium may further impair ecosystem functioning.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2021

The rate of ecological acclimation is the dominant uncertainty in long-term projections of a key ecosystem service

Rapid climate change may exceed ecosystems capacity to respond through processes including phenotypic plasticity, compositional turnover and evolutionary adaption. However, research predicting impacts of climate change on ecosystem services rarely consider this rate of "ecosystem acclimation." Combining statistical models fit to historical climate data and remotely-sensed estimates of herbaceous productivity with an ensemble of climate models, we demonstrate that assumptions concerning acclimation rates are a dominant source of uncertainty: models assuming minimal acclimation project widespread decreases in forage production in the western US by 2100, while models assuming that acclimation keeps pace with climate change project widespread forage increases. Uncertainty related to ecosystem acclimation is larger than uncertainties from variation among climate models or emissions pathways. A better understanding of ecosystem acclimation is essential to improve long-term forecasts of ecosystem services, and shows that management to facilitate ecosystem acclimation may be necessary to maintain ecosystem services at historical baselines.

ecology↗