Temperaturberoendet hos ekologiska nätverk

With climate warming, we are turning up the heat on ecological interaction networks.

Nonetheless, the community impacts of climate warming have – to our knowledge – not been explored from a coherent network perspective.We aim to characterise the temperature-dependence of ecological interaction networks by combining observations at the levels of individuals, populations and communities.

The approach includes 1) a covariate-informed latent interaction model which describes the temperature response of the ecological interaction network, 2) a logistic regression model for the temperature response of individual activity conditional on realized interaction, and 3) a model for the unconditional realized interaction which results from the product of 1) and 2).

Steps 2) and 3) will be parameterised with empirical data.

We will then validate these models against observed community patterns, as quantified in both space and time.Overall, we expect our project to provide a conceptual framework for understanding transformative changes in natural communities.

By implementing the framework in a coherent model system, we will establish its utility, explore the extent of change incurred during 25-years of climate change, and quantify expected changes under realistic climate scenarios.

The study will yield a conceptual framework for the benefit of a large scientific community, a benchmark of changes already incurred, and informed estimates of changes to come.