The concept of the ecological niche can be a useful lens through which to view variation in species’ responses to climate change. Relating geographical or elevational distributions to species niches has intuitive appeal and has a long history in ecology. The reasoning follows that individuals of widespread species should have broader tolerances for a variety of environmental conditions experienced throughout their range compared to individuals of species with more restricted ranges. However, it is important to test this assumption because wide environmental tolerances at the species level many not equate to wide tolerances at the level of populations or individuals. Species distributions at local scales may also be informative measures of niche breadth. We tested flowering responses in 17 plant species from a subalpine meadow to variation in climatic conditions across nine years of study and whether elevational, geographic, and local distributions predict flowering stability (1/CV).
Results/Conclusions
We found that flowering across species was generally positively related to precipitation and inversely related to temperature. Neither elevational range nor geographic distribution related to flowering stability across species as expected. In contrast, local prevalence positively related to stability as expected. These finding may be explained by adaptations of local populations to local environmental variation. Local scale heterogeneity in distributions may be a promising but often overlooked predictor of species resilience to climate change.