Evolution Meets MAcroecology - integrating rapid adaptation into predictions of future plant species' ranges (EMMA)

The associated potential loss of biodiversity and ecosystem function is one of the most critical issues our society is facing. Thus, a major aim of global change research is the development of reliable predictions on future geographic distributions of species, communities and functional diversity. These predictions allow to assess the impacts of climatic changes on ecosystem goods and services, to develop adaptive management and conservation strategies and to demonstrate the magnitude of the problem to decision makers. However, the reliability of recent model-based assessments for future species' range dynamics suffers from the fact that most macro-ecological modeling approaches lack in ecological mechanisms and evolutionary dynamics. The project improved the quality and reliability of species distribution models by bridging the gap between macro-ecological approaches and the accumulating evidence of the importance of evolutionary dynamics for species' response to climate change.

The project team developed a modelling framework that allows investigating the co-actions of ecological and evolutionary processes at the individual-level and the resulting patterns of species distributions and evolutionary trajectories at large temporal scales. The model also allows the simulation of future climatic and biodiversity scenarios on a high technological level. Based on this model, the project results demonstrate that many of the typically complex dynamics of evolutionary adaptation in natural populations cannot be captured without taking into account ecological processes at the individual level and the complicating effect of space. The new model provides more robust quantitative predictions on the likelihood of evolutionary rescue in particular populations or species. This will assist the EU in progressing towards meeting the targets set by the Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.