Spatial heterogeneity in climate change effects decouples the long-term dynamics of wild reindeer populations in the high Arctic.

ABSTRACT: The 'Moran effect' predicts that dynamics of populations of a species are synchronized over similar distances as their environmental drivers. Strong population synchrony reduces species viability, but spatial heterogeneity in density dependence, the environment, or its ecological responses may decouple dynamics in space, preventing extinctions. How such heterogeneity buffers impacts of global change on large-scale population dynamics is not well studied. Here, we show that spatially autocorrelated fluctuations in annual winter weather synchronize wild reindeer dynamics across high-Arctic Svalbard, while, paradoxically, spatial variation in winter climate trends contribute to diverging local population trajectories. Warmer summers have improved the carrying capacity and apparently led to in

SUBMITTER: Hansen BB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6851690 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature