PARENT SESSION
Symposium 11: How Will the Southeast's Biological Diversity Respond to Climate Change?
Organized by: P White, J Walker, and J Sutter
Wednesday, August 6. 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM, SITCC Chatham Ballroom B.
How will climate change affect plant-animal interactions? A look at cues and constraints.
Schauber, Eric*,1, Kelly, Dave2, Ostfeld, Richard3, Jones, Clive3, 1 Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory, Carbondale, IL2 Department of Plant and Microbial Sciences, Christchurch, New Zealand, New Zealand3 Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY
ABSTRACT- Many of life's processes change in a continuous manner as environmental conditions change within particular bounds, but small additional environmental shifts can cause disproportionate effects. As starting points from which to examine potential effects of climate change on plant-animal interactions, we focus on two such nonlinearities: cueing of mast-seeding and seasonal constraints. Mast-seeding (or masting) is a powerful ecological driver that both improves reproductive success of participating plants and initiates chain reactions that ripple through animal communities. For several plant species, disproportionate responses to subtle temperature cues have been found that enable the reproductive synchronization requisite for mast seeding to occur. These cues tend to be linked with large-scale climatic phenomena like El Niño-Southern Oscillation, the frequency and intensity of which are expected to increase as global temperatures rise. We examine through empirically based models how climate change could alter the frequency, intensity, and synchrony of masting, and examine impacts on plant populations, seed consumers and their ecological associates. The results depend strongly on the phenotypic plasticity of the masting cue response. The linkage between oak masting, mice, and gypsy moths provides an informative case study. In temperate zones, warming is expected to have disproportionate impact on the presence and depth of snow, which can have inverse effects on many herbivores (whose foraging is hindered by snow) and plants or seeds (for which snow can provide protection from extreme cold and herbivores). We review the case of invasive musk thistle, in which biological control agents may interact synergistically with snow cover to suppress the population. These mechanisms represent but a small subset of possible effects of climate change on plant-animal interactions. However, focusing on cues, constraints, and other nonlinearities is likely to accelerate our understanding of how plant-animal interactions will change as the world warms.
Key words: plant-animal interactions, nonlinearity, climate change, masting