Origins and consequences of global and local stressors: Incorporating climatic and non-climatic phenomena that buffer or accelerate ecological change

Abstract

With research into the ecological effects of climatic change intensifying over the past decade, there has been an effort to increase the scale of experiments from a focus on individual organisms to incorporate the effects of the structure and functioning of entire ecosystems. As the scale of investigation becomes increasingly broad, however, the number of seemingly contradictory outcomes also increases. In reality, however, change or persistence of ecological patterns represents interplay of processes across diverse scales of space and time. At one extreme, non-climatic influences can dominate local and short-term processes that protect systems against change or accelerate change. Here, we draw on case studies that demonstrate such contrasting situations, presenting examples where local conditions can either ameliorate or exacerbate the predicted effects of climate change. By incorporating examples of stressors that originate and manifest at different spatial scales, we also attempt to refine some of the efforts surrounding research into the effects of climate change.