Dynamic Community Re-shuffling Under Elevational Climate Shifts

Published:

Problem

Climate change is forcing species to redistribute uphill in montane ecosystems, but species migrate at different rates, reshaping community compositions and potentially accelerating upland extinctions.
Goal: Forecast elevational community turnover across thousands of assemblages, using a streamlined, optimised spatial workflow capable of dynamic, simultaneous predictions for many species.

Approach

  • Compiled and harmonised spatial layers: species distribution models, thermal resistance surfaces, and elevational patch definitions.
  • Simulated uphill shifts of 7,613 community assemblages using per-species dispersal probabilities and landscape resistance, then computed dissimilarity indices to quantify community restructuring.
  • Engineered high-throughput and optimised code (parallel processing, efficient file I/O, streamlined loops) to run multi-spatial, multi-species forecasts significantly faster.
  • Enabled dynamic visualisation and batch processing to support interactive exploration and extensive scenario testing.

Stack

  • Spatial forecasting: improved workflows for handling high-resolution, multi-species predictions across elevational bands.
  • Advanced statistical analyses: dispersal success estimation, beta-diversity (dissimilarity) metrics, and patch-level population turnover.
  • Workflow optimisation: high-performance parallelisation, memory-efficient geospatial processing, reproducible scripting.
  • Implementation: all in R, with version control and data reproducibility.

Results

  • Mapped intense community turnover (reshuffling) along elevation gradients; particularly severe species co-occurrence declines at higher altitudes.
  • Identification of “escalator to extinction” zones where communities are most vulnerable to future climate shifts.

Impact

  • Enabled a more nuanced, high-resolution understanding of community reshuffling under climate change.
  • Provided conservation forecasters and policymakers actionable outputs to prioritise monitoring and intervention in vulnerable elevational zones.

Links & Resources

Role

  • Designed and implemented the spatial forecasting workflow for multi-species community simulations.
  • Built optimised, high-performance pipelines for dynamic ecosystem predictions.
  • Analysed reshuffling patterns and risk zones.
  • Authored the manuscript and coordinated workflow dissemination.