Linking community-climate disequilibrium to ecosystem function
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Abstract
Turnover in species composition often lags behind the pace of climate change, resulting in mismatches between climate and communities. However, the impact of these community-climate disequilibria on ecosystem functions is rarely considered, and current methods for measuring disequilibria assume that species ranges were, until recently, in equilibrium with climate. Here, we develop a simple theoretical model to address both of these problems by linking community-climate disequilibrium with ecosystem functioning. We show how disequilibrium can impair functioning in the near-term even when climate change is expected to enhance functioning in the long-term. Responses are most likely to change over time in communities where turnover is slow, the impact of disequilibrium counteracts the direct effects of climate on ecosystem function, and pre-existing disequilibrium is large. These findings emphasise the importance of precise and unbiased estimates of community-climate disequilibria for improving ecological forecasts. By fitting our model to time series of both climate and ecosystem function from a metacommunity simulation, we show the potential for community-climate disequilibrium to be inferred without direct knowledge about species' distributions or climatic tolerances. We end by outlining a research agenda to apply dynamic disequilibrium concepts and test novel hypotheses across diverse ecosystems.
Suggested Citation
Stemkovski, M., Cortez, M.H., Bernhardt, J.R., Bladen, K.K., Bradford, J., Clark-Wolf, K., Evans, M.E., Johnson, L.C., Lynch, A., Pastore, M.A., Pinsky, M.L., Rollinson, C.R., Selmoni, O., Walker, A.P., Williams, J.W., and Adler, P.B., 2026, Linking community-climate disequilibrium to ecosystem function: Ecology Letters, v. 29, no. 1, e70314, 13 p., https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.70314.
| Publication type | Article |
|---|---|
| Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
| Title | Linking community-climate disequilibrium to ecosystem function |
| Series title | Ecology Letters |
| DOI | 10.1111/ele.70314 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication Date | January 23, 2026 |
| Year Published | 2026 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Wiley |
| Contributing office(s) | Southwest Biological Science Center, National Climate Adaptation Science Center |
| Description | e70314, 13 p. |