Reply to: Spatial scale and the synchrony of ecological disruption

Abstract

In the accompanying Comment1, Colwell states that mechanisms such as evolution, range shifts, and localized climate refugia may enhance species persistence under climate warming, and that these mechanisms will be more likely to operate within larger spatial grains and mountainous regions. We agree that these mechanisms have important roles, and discussed each of them in our Article2. However, Colwell does not provide any quantitative evidence to support the claim that our analysis overestimates the risk of abrupt climate exposure and presents a highly selective set of factors that are unlikely to have directionally biased our results. Here we explain why our conclusions are robust to the oversimplified subset of mechanisms discussed by Colwell and highlight why we believe that the species exposure models (SEMs) that we introduced are an important step forward in ecological forecasting.

Publication Type
Journal Article
Authors
Cory Merow, Yale
Alex L. Pigot
Date
Journal
Nature
Share

Related Content