What are the impacts of species range shifts under climate change?

Species are shifting their range due to climate change, and our syntheses have highlighted that this process is having impacts worldwide (Pecl et al. 2017) and that the impacts of native species range shifts can be as detrimental as those of non-native species invasions (Sorte et al. 2010, Henry & Sorte 2022). With funding from the National Science Foundation (PI: Sorte, 2021-26), the Sorte Lab is conducted surveys and experiments at 23 sites along the coast of California and Baja California, Mexico to understand the impacts of two predatory snails that have undergone recent poleward range shifts along the U.S. west coast. This field effort has been led by Ph.D. student Ryan Beshai in collaboration with the labs of Paul Bourdeau (Cal Poly, Humboldt), Julio Lorda (UABC, Ensenada) and Lydia Ladah (CICESE, Ensenada). With fieldwork on this project completed, we have shifted our focus to lab experiments to disentangle the species interactions (MS student Rizelle Mazon is exploring responses of resident whelks to expanding competitors) and using our empirical data for modeling PhD student Chloe Goodsell and our collaborator, postdoc Jeremy Collings, are using demographic population modeling to predict site-level population growth). We are also conducting two synthesis of the impacts of hundreds of marine species shifting their ranges worldwide: Ryan Beshai used an invasion risk assessment (EICAT) approach and PhD student Irissa Danke is conducting a quantitative meta-analysis.

What are impacts of multiple, potentially interacting climate change factors?

As climate change continues, species are likely to respond directly to alterations in multiple environmental conditions and indirectly to shifts in species interactions. With funding from the National Science Foundation (PI: Sorte, 2018-2022), we used novel, field-based approaches to simulate warming and CO2 enrichment in tide pool systems in collaboration with the Bracken Lab at UCI, Kroeker Lab at UCSC, Miller Lab at SDSU, and the Sitka Sound Science Center. Results from an earlier short-term experiment suggested that warming and CO2 interact to influence productivity and that ecosystem-level responses emerge before changes to community composition (Sorte & Bracken 2015). In 2019 and 2020, we ran longer-term (3-6 month) climate manipulations to assess impacts from the organismal to ecosystem level and mechanisms underlying those changes. We have published 6+ papers about this research to date, and additional manuscripts reporting on the findings of our manipulative experiment are currently under review (Sorte et al., Rangel et al.) and in preparation (Bracken et al., Rio Rojas et al.). With funding from UCI, PI Sorte and collaborator Bracken returned to Sitka during recent summers to study the impacts of heat waves and role of coastal foundation species in buffering heat wave effects. These new data on extreme heat events have served as a basis for grant proposals currently in review.

Will climate change increase the impact of invasive species?

Invasive species have had large ecological and economic impacts worldwide and, with climate change, are one of the primary threats to global biodiversity. We have collaborated on multiple grants and working groups focused on the intersection of climate change and invasion impacts. These include an international research grant (led by Montse Vila with the Sorte Lab funded by NSF/Biodiversa 2019-2024) to understand and manage invasion impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, international working groups initiated by PI Sorte (funded by NCEAS 2011-2013 and the Borchard Foundation 2015-2016), and participation in recent working groups funded by NCEAS (2019-2021) and the USGS Powell Center (2022-2025). These collaborations have given Sorte Lab members the opportunity to participate in an international network of invasion and global change biologists, leading to papers with broad, general relevance. For example, Project Scientist Amy Henry lead efforts to conduct EICAT (Environmental Impacts Classification of Alien Taxa) risk assessments of non-native invasive species and native species that are shifting their ranges under climate change (Henry & Sorte 2022). Our syntheses have shown that the impacts of invasive predators accrue quickly, necessitating rapid response (Bradley et al. 2019) and that climate change more often offsets than intensifies the impacts of species invasions (Lopez et al. 2022). We also described the potential to understand impacts of native species range shifts through the lens of invasion biology (Wallingford et al. 2020). Current projects underway are focused on invasive species control, invasive plant impacts, and ranking the top unanswered questions in invasion biology.

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