Meeting Abstract

S9-9  Wednesday, Jan. 6 14:00  Integrating climatic variation and population-level variation into models to predict climate change impacts SHELDON, K.S*; DILLON, M.E.; University of Wyoming; University of Wyoming Kimberly.Sheldon@uwyo.edu

The ability of species to cope with temperature change will vary according to the degree of change and the physiological ability of a species to handle change. The majority of studies on the impacts of climate change have used mean annual temperature to model and then predict species’ response to warming. Though largely ignored, other “cryptic” changes in temperature may drive species’ responses more strongly than mean annual temperature. In addition, although many studies have incorporated variation in physiological traits among species in predictions of climate change impacts, few have considered the effects of variation in physiology among populations within a species. Here, we contrast 1) biotic impacts based on mean temperatures with estimates using hourly temperature data and 2) biotic impacts based on models that incorporate population-level variation with those that do not. Modeling approaches that do not take into account climatic variation or physiological variation both among and within species may fail to accurately predict the ability of species to persist in the face of climate change.