Ecological acclimation: A framework to integrate fast and slow responses to climate change

作者：Michael Stemkovski, Joey R. Bernhardt, Benjamin Blonder, John B. Bradford, Kyra Clark‐Wolf, Laura E. Dee, Margaret E. K. Evans, Virginia Iglesias, Loretta C. Johnson, Abigail J. Lynch, Sparkle L. Malone, Brooke B. Osborne, Melissa A. Pastore, Michael J. Paterson, Malin L. Pinsky, Christine R. Rollinson, Oliver Selmoni, Jason J. Venkiteswaran, Anthony P. Walker, Nicole K. Ward, John W. Williams, Claire M. Zarakas, Peter B. Adler · 发表于：Functional Ecology · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1111/1365-2435.70079 · 被引用次数：19 · 研究领域：Species Distribution and Climate Change、Ecosystem dynamics and resilience、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies

Abstract Ecological responses to climate change occur across vastly different time‐scales, from minutes for physiological plasticity to decades or centuries for community turnover and evolutionary adaptation. Accurately predicting the range of ecosystem trajectories will require models that incorporate both fast processes that may keep pace with climate change and slower ones likely to lag behind and generate disequilibrium dynamics. However, the knowledge necessary for this integration is currently fragmented across disciplines. We develop ‘ecological acclimation’ as a unifying framework to emphasize the similarity of dynamics driven by processes operating on dramatically different time‐scales and levels of biological organization. The framework focuses on ecoclimate sensitivities, measured as the change in an ecological response variable per unit of climate change. Acclimation processes acting at different time‐scales cause these sensitivities to shift in magnitude and even direction over time. We highlight shifting ecoclimate sensitivities in case studies from diverse ecosystems, including terrestrial plant communities, coral reefs and soil microbiomes. Models predicting future ecosystem states inevitably make assumptions about acclimation processes; these assumptions must be explicit for users to evaluate whether a model is appropriate for a given forecast horizon. Similarly, decision frameworks that clearly account for multiple acclimation processes and their distinct ti...