Environmental variation and population responses to global change

Area of Science:

• Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, Conservation Biology

Background:

• Species' survival depends on environmental conditions, including both average changes (like global warming) and fluctuations.
• Predicting biodiversity conservation strategies requires understanding how environmental variation affects ecological and evolutionary processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review recent studies on how populations respond to changing environmental variance.
• To assess how environmental variance influences population responses to shifts in mean environmental conditions.

Main Methods:

• Review of theoretical and empirical studies on population dynamics and environmental variability.
• Analysis of the relationship between environmental variance and population growth rates.
• Examination of how environmental variance alters the effects of mean environmental changes.

Main Results:

• Empirical evidence shows increased environmental variance can either boost or reduce population growth rates.
• Environmental variance can change or reverse the impact of altered mean conditions on populations.
• Excluding environmental variance from models hinders accurate predictions of species' responses to environmental change.

Conclusions:

• Species' traits like phylogenetic history and body mass can help predict responses to future environmental variability.
• Understanding environmental variance is crucial for effective biodiversity conservation under global change.
• Population models must incorporate environmental variance for reliable predictions.