(Above) A conceptual diagram depicting changes in thermal niche breadths and vulnerability to climate change for species occurring at various latitudes (the green box highlights the tropical latitudes between 23.5° North and South). Due to differences in climate variability, tropical species on average have narrower climatic niches and greater sensitivity to climate change compared to their temperate counterparts. Perez, Stroud, & Feeley (2016)Thermal trouble in the tropics. Science, doi: 10.1126/science.aaf3343
Understanding Species’ Responses To Climate Change
My interest in climate change research includes both theoretical and empirical topics, and spans geographical regions and taxonomic groups. Specifically, I am interested in understanding physiological and ecological responses of species – at different spatial scales – to modern changes in their climatic environment. Opportunities for responding to climate change are limited, and are generally confined to two options; either species can i) remain in situ and adapt to new climatic conditions (ie. evolve), or ii) track suitable climatic conditions (ie. migrate).
Using empirical and conceptual modelling we have investigated how species migrations may unfold mechanistically (see Rehm et al. 2015) and directionally (see Feeley et al. 2014). Tropical species are at an elevated risk of extinction from climate change as abiotic (Perez et al. 2016) and biotic (Stroud & Feeley 2015) pressures are stronger compared to temperate regions. Current research is attempting to understand how physiological tests of select functional traits may be used to investigate species’ responses to climate change, and how they may improve the accuracy of species distribution modelling.
Geographic and Taxonomic Biases in Climate Change Research
Current research is a) focused on highlighting major geographic and taxonomic biases in climate change studies, such that many “global” analyses are uninformative and predictions potentially incorrect (see Perez et al. 2016, Feeley et al. 2016), and b) collecting species-specific ecological and physiological data to test the robustness of current species distribution modelling methods under climate change scenarios.
Relevant publications:
– Feeley, K.J., Stroud, J.T., Perez, T.M. (2016) Most global reviews of climate change aren’t truly global. Diversity & Distributions PDF
– Perez, T.M., Stroud, J.T., Feeley, K.J., (2016) Thermal trouble in the tropics. Science, 351(6280): 1392-1393 PDF
– Rehm, E., Feeley, K.J., Stroud, J.T. (2015) Losing your edge: climate change and the conservation value of range-edge populations. Ecology & Evolution, doi: 10.1002/ece3.1645 PDF
– Stroud, J.T., and Feeley, K.J. (2015) A downside of diversity? A response to Gallagher et al. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 30(6): 296-297 PDF
– Stroud, J.T., and Feeley, K.J. (2015) Responsible academica: Optimizing conference locations to minimize greenhouse gas emissions. Ecography, 38(4): 402-404 PDF
Ecography blog post
- Feeley, K.J., Rehm, E., Stroud, J.T. (2014) There are many barriers to species migrations. Frontiers of Biogeography 6(2): fb_22006 PDF