Understanding biodiversity responses to global change: Populations, communities, and species distributions
Public Deposited- Creator
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Di Cecco, Grace J
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Biology
- Abstract
- Human influence on global ecosystems is pervasive. To mitigate the effects of climate change and land use change, there is a need for developing a predictive understanding of how global biodiversity has been impacted. Identifying ecological traits of species associated with species that are vulnerable to, tolerant of, or benefitting from anthropogenic change can help predict ecological communities of the future. In this dissertation, I investigated the ecological impacts of global change at three levels: populations, communities, and range distributions.Population responses to anthropogenic change may be context dependent: climate change effects may be exacerbated by simultaneous land use changes, or intraspecific population response to climate change may depend on whether the population is in a warmer or colder portion of the species’ range. To address these questions, I modeled how forest fragmentation and climate change predict changes in population trends of 67 forest breeding bird species throughout the United States and Canada. Secondly, I determined whether ecological traits such as migratory strategy, habitat specialization, and thermal niche width can predict the susceptibility of species to the impacts of forest fragmentation and climate change. As a result of ongoing anthropogenic change, ecological communities have reshuffled. Understanding how communities are changing requires consideration of compositional shifts in species identity and abundance and how they are related to global change. I examined the compositional change in bird communities, comparing the relative contribution of land use and climate change variables from local to regional scales over the past 25 years in the United States and Canada. Additionally, I measured how species traits may explain turnover in response to climate and land use change. Impacts from local climate and land use change on populations and communities ultimately scale up to impact species range distributions. In response, species may undergo shifts in population size, sites occupied within their range, and shifts in range extent. Niche breadth on various axes may influence the direction and magnitude of these responses. Using annual survey data on breeding birds over forty years, I characterized the relative importance of niche breadth in explaining changes in species range responses.
- Date of publication
- 2022
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
- Advisor
- Hurlbert, Allen H
- Umbanhowar, James
- Bruno, John F
- Song, Conghe
- Jarzyna, Marta A
- Degree
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
- Graduation year
- 2022
- Language
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