Expanding, shifting and shrinking: The impact of global warming on species’ elevational distributions
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Aim Species are responding to climate warming by shifting their distributions toward historically cooler regions, but the degree to which expansions at cool range limits are balanced by contractions at warm limits is unknown. We synthesized published data documenting shifts at species’ warm versus cool range limits along elevational gradients to (a) test classic ecological theory that predicts temperature more directly influences species’ cool range limits than their warm range limits, and (b) determine how warming‐associated shifts have changed the extent and area of species’ elevational distributions. Location Global. Time period 1802–2012. Major taxa studied Vascular plants, endotherms, ectotherms. Methods We compiled a dataset of 975 species from 32 elevational gradients for which range shifts have been measured at both warm and cool range limits. We compared the magnitude and variance of shifts at species’ warm versus cool limits, and quantified how range shifts have impacted species’ elevational extents and areas. Results On average species have shifted upslope associated with temperature increases at both warm and cool limits (warm limit: 92 ± 455 m/C; cool limit: 131 ± 465 m/C; overall mean ± SD ). There was no systematic difference in the magnitude or variance of shifts at warm versus cool limits and thus no indication that cool limits are more directly controlled by temperature. Species’ elevational extents and available area significantly decreased for mountaintop species. Main conclusions Our results do not support the long‐standing hypothesis that cool limits are more sensitive or responsive to temperature. We find that, across the globe, mountaintop species’ ranges are significantly shrinking as they shift upslope, supporting predictions that high elevation species are especially vulnerable to temperature increases. Our synthesis highlights the extreme variation in species’ distributional responses to warming, which may indicate that biotic interactions play a more prominent role in setting range limits than previously thought.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".