iDiv Annual Conference 2026

Climatic niche properties interact with land-use in predicting plant responses to climate variability in a global change experiment

Not scheduled

20m

Talk Complexity

Speaker

Thibault Coquery (Department of Species Interaction Ecology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, Germany, Department of Community Ecology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Halle, Germany, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany, Department Geobotany and Botanical Garden, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany)

Description

Experimental ecology and macroecology both contribute to predicting species’ responses to climate change, yet each has limitations. Recent integrative studies have shown that even coarse characterization of species’ climatic niche can help explain plant responses to experimental climate manipulations. Nevertheless, interactions between local factors, such as land-use, and the broader macroecological climate context remain insufficiently explored. This gap can be addressed using the Global Change Experimental Facility (Central Germany), where climate is realistically manipulated through seasonal shifts across land-use types (mown meadows vs. grazed grasslands). Based on 10 years of plant cover and biomass data, one can also assess the influence of background interannual climate variability, including severe drought years. In this study, we projected local climatic conditions into cautiously characterized European climatic niches to derive distances from niche optima. No consistent relationship emerged between these distances and responses to experimental climate manipulation, as most species showed weak responses. In contrast, interannual variability was consistent with niche theory: species abundance declined with increasing distance from the niche optimum in summer, but not in spring. This negative relationship was weaker in pastures than in meadows, likely due to greater environmental heterogeneity and stochasticity buffering climate effects. Moreover, the species most negatively affected were those farthest from their niche optima under local conditions. Overall, grassland species responded rapidly to year-to-year climatic variation during the critical summer period, and the responses were predictable from climatic niches. Notably, land-use management modulated this predictive power. We therefore advocate for more integrative approaches that combine macroecological properties with experimental data to improve forecasts of biodiversity responses to climate change.