ABSTRACT
As has been evidenced throughout the chapters, characterizations of biotic response to recent climate change continue to occur, and with a quickening pace compared to earlier research on the topic. However, as also evidenced throughout this book, the complete story involved in most responses is invariably more nuanced. Some species will exhibit dramatic response to a particular aspect of altered climate, others may exhibit a minimal or no detectable response, while a few exhibit a response counter to what would be predicted by a tight relationship to climate. For example, under warmer climates in a portion of a mountain range, some species’ elevational limits will retract upslope at the lower edge, other species’ limits at the upper edge, while still others may shift their lower-or upper-elevational boundary (or both) downslope (Moritz et al. 2008; Lenoir et al. 2010; Wilson and Gutiérrez this volume). Similarly, the same species may exhibit dramatic reductions in distribution in some regions, yet experience few or no apparent losses in other portions of the species’ geographic range (e.g. Walther et al. 2002; Bruggerman 2009; Beever et al. 2010). Alternatively, the same species may have its distribution controlled by one factor in a portion of its range, and by another factor at different elevations, latitudes, years, seasons, or even weeks (Stenseth et al. 2002; Hallett et al. 2004; Murphy and Lovett-Doust 2007). However, just as a city’s environment is better described by its climate than by its forecast for the next day’s weather, the complete story of responses to recent climate
Importance of Mechanistic Understanding ............................................................287 Some Things We Know, and Things We Have Learned.........................................287 Remaining Gaps in Our Understanding-Some Examples ...................................288 Looking Forward to the Future .............................................................................. 291 Summary ................................................................................................................292 References ..............................................................................................................292
