Reimagining species on the move across space and time
Alexa Fredston, Morgan W. Tingley, Montague H. C. Neate‐Clegg, Luke J. Evans, Laura H. Antão, Natalie C. Ban, I‐Ching Chen, Yiwen Chen, Lise Comte, D. P. Edwards, Birgitta Evengård, Belén Fadrique, Sophie Falkeis, Robert Guralnick, David H. Klinges, Jonas J. Lembrechts, Jonathan Lenoir, Juliano Palacios‐Abrantes, Aníbal Pauchard, GT Pecl, Malin L. Pinsky, Rebecca A. Senior, Jennifer E. Smith, Lydia Soifer, Jennifer M. Sunday, Ken D. Tape, Peter Washam, Brett R. Scheffers
Abstract
Climate change is already leaving a broad footprint of impacts on biodiversity, from an individual caterpillar emerging earlier in spring to dominant plant communities migrating poleward. Despite the various modes of how species are on the move, we primarily document shifting species along only one gradient (e.g., latitude or phenology) and along one dimension (space or time). In this opinion article we present a unifying framework for integrating the study of species on the move over space and time and from micro to macro scales. Future conservation planning and natural resource management will depend on our ability to use this framework to improve understanding, attribution, and prediction of species on the move.