Future Climate Change Will Favour Non-Specialist Mammals in the (Sub)Arctics
Arctic and subarctic (i.e., [sub]arctic) ecosystems are predicted to be particularly susceptible to climate change. The area of tundra is expected to decrease and temperate climates will extend further north, affecting species inhabiting northern environments. Consequently, species at high latitudes...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3527567 2023-05-15T14:41:57+02:00 Future Climate Change Will Favour Non-Specialist Mammals in the (Sub)Arctics Hof, Anouschka R. Jansson, Roland Nilsson, Christer 2012-12-20 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3527567 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23285098 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0052574 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3527567 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23285098 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0052574 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2012 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0052574 2013-09-04T17:30:10Z Arctic and subarctic (i.e., [sub]arctic) ecosystems are predicted to be particularly susceptible to climate change. The area of tundra is expected to decrease and temperate climates will extend further north, affecting species inhabiting northern environments. Consequently, species at high latitudes should be especially susceptible to climate change, likely experiencing significant range contractions. Contrary to these expectations, our modelling of species distributions suggests that predicted climate change up to 2080 will favour most mammals presently inhabiting (sub)arctic Europe. Assuming full dispersal ability, most species will benefit from climate change, except for a few cold-climate specialists. However, most resident species will contract their ranges if they are not able to track their climatic niches, but no species is predicted to go extinct. If climate would change far beyond current predictions, however, species might disappear. The reason for the relative stability of mammalian presence might be that arctic regions have experienced large climatic shifts in the past, filtering out sensitive and range-restricted taxa. We also provide evidence that for most (sub)arctic mammals it is not climate change per se that will threaten them, but possible constraints on their dispersal ability and changes in community composition. Such impacts of future changes in species communities should receive more attention in literature. Text Arctic Climate change Subarctic Tundra PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic PLoS ONE 7 12 e52574 |
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Research Article Hof, Anouschka R. Jansson, Roland Nilsson, Christer Future Climate Change Will Favour Non-Specialist Mammals in the (Sub)Arctics |
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Research Article |
description |
Arctic and subarctic (i.e., [sub]arctic) ecosystems are predicted to be particularly susceptible to climate change. The area of tundra is expected to decrease and temperate climates will extend further north, affecting species inhabiting northern environments. Consequently, species at high latitudes should be especially susceptible to climate change, likely experiencing significant range contractions. Contrary to these expectations, our modelling of species distributions suggests that predicted climate change up to 2080 will favour most mammals presently inhabiting (sub)arctic Europe. Assuming full dispersal ability, most species will benefit from climate change, except for a few cold-climate specialists. However, most resident species will contract their ranges if they are not able to track their climatic niches, but no species is predicted to go extinct. If climate would change far beyond current predictions, however, species might disappear. The reason for the relative stability of mammalian presence might be that arctic regions have experienced large climatic shifts in the past, filtering out sensitive and range-restricted taxa. We also provide evidence that for most (sub)arctic mammals it is not climate change per se that will threaten them, but possible constraints on their dispersal ability and changes in community composition. Such impacts of future changes in species communities should receive more attention in literature. |
format |
Text |
author |
Hof, Anouschka R. Jansson, Roland Nilsson, Christer |
author_facet |
Hof, Anouschka R. Jansson, Roland Nilsson, Christer |
author_sort |
Hof, Anouschka R. |
title |
Future Climate Change Will Favour Non-Specialist Mammals in the (Sub)Arctics |
title_short |
Future Climate Change Will Favour Non-Specialist Mammals in the (Sub)Arctics |
title_full |
Future Climate Change Will Favour Non-Specialist Mammals in the (Sub)Arctics |
title_fullStr |
Future Climate Change Will Favour Non-Specialist Mammals in the (Sub)Arctics |
title_full_unstemmed |
Future Climate Change Will Favour Non-Specialist Mammals in the (Sub)Arctics |
title_sort |
future climate change will favour non-specialist mammals in the (sub)arctics |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3527567 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23285098 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0052574 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Climate change Subarctic Tundra |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change Subarctic Tundra |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3527567 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23285098 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0052574 |
op_rights |
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
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CC-BY |
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0052574 |
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PLoS ONE |
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