Project
The spatial ecology of climates: conceptual, empirical, and conservation applications in amphibiansAmphibian populations are declining world-wide; a trend that has been emphasized throughout the last four decades of herpetological research. Among the many documented causes, human-driven changes to climate and the environment have contributed in significant ways to these declines. When the changes in climatic and environmental conditions are greater than an amphibian’s ability to adapt – which they often are - local and regional extinctions are expected to ensue. This sensitivity may be further exacerbated by how the climate and the environment are spatially structured. The characteristics of species that in great part determine the structure of ecological communities, among other mechanisms and factors, is a function of how species have adapted over evolutionary time to the spatial structure of their environments (i.e., environmental heterogeneity). Generalists have adapted to historically environmentally heterogenous landscapes with temporally variable environments, whereas specialists have adapted in the opposite manner. While the effects of environmental heterogeneity on community structure are well documented in the literature, those of the spatial structure of climatic conditions have not yet been considered.
