Meeting Abstract
Understanding range dynamics for any given species will not only require an understanding of how that individual species will respond to climate, but also how that species will respond to other species in it’s community. Such an understanding, then, will require some knowledge of how the strength of species interactions respond to both changes in magnitude and variance of relevant temperatures through time and space. Though implicit to many of our studies, few ecological experiments have explicitly examined how thermal heterogeneity shapes species interactions. Temporally, species-specific traits can produce activity profiles that minimize direct (exploitative) interactions through specialization on different preferred temperatures. Spatially, the arrangement of thermal habitat will dictate the outcome or frequency of competitive interactions. When preferred thermal environments are aggregated, the potential for interactions are intensified. When preferred thermal environments are dispersed, coexistence of potential competitors can be sustained. Here, we have three goals. First, we will provide theoretical expectations from spatially explicit, individually based models for the outcomes of competitive interactions both within and among species. Next, we will review the literature on competition in light of these thermal heterogeneity. Last, we will hypothesize how predicted climatic change may might affect the future state of ecological communities. From these insights, we will outline future directions for research with respect to climate driven species interactions.
