Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Forecasted range shifts of arid-land fishes in response to climate change

  • Research Paper
  • Published:
Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Climate change is poised to alter the distributional limits, center, and size of many species. Traits may influence different aspects of range shifts, with trophic generality facilitating shifts at the leading edge, and greater thermal tolerance limiting contractions at the trailing edge. The generality of relationships between traits and range shifts remains ambiguous however, especially for imperiled fishes residing in xeric riverscapes. Our objectives were to quantify contemporary fish distributions in the Lower Colorado River Basin, forecast climate change by 2085 using two general circulation models, and quantify shifts in the limits, center, and size of fish elevational ranges according to fish traits. We examined relationships among traits and range shift metrics either singly using univariate linear modeling or combined with multivariate redundancy analysis. We found that trophic and dispersal traits were associated with shifts at the leading and trailing edges, respectively, although projected range shifts were largely unexplained by traits. As expected, piscivores and omnivores with broader diets shifted upslope most at the leading edge while more specialized invertivores exhibited minimal changes. Fishes that were more mobile shifted upslope most at the trailing edge, defying predictions. No traits explained changes in range center or size. Finally, current preference explained multivariate range shifts, as fishes with faster current preferences exhibited smaller multivariate changes. Although range shifts were largely unexplained by traits, more specialized invertivorous fishes with lower dispersal propensity or greater current preference may require the greatest conservation efforts because of their limited capacity to shift ranges under climate change.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alder JR, Hostetler SW, Pollard D, Schmittner A (2011) Evaluation of a present-day climate simulation with a new coupled atmosphere–ocean model GENMOM. Geosci Model Dev 4:69–83

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Angert AL, Crozier LG, Rissler LJ, Gilman SE, Tewksbury JJ, Chunco AJ (2011) Do species’ traits predict recent shifts at expanding range edges? Ecol Lett 14:677–689

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bates AE, Pecl GT, Frusher S, Hobday AJ, Wernberg T, Smale DA, Sunday JM, Hill NA, Dulvy NK, Colwell RK, Holbrook NJ, Fulton EA, Slawinski D, Feng M, Edgar GJ, Radford BT, Thompson PA, Watson RA (2014) Defining and observing stages of climate-mediated range shifts in marine systems. Glob Environ Change 26:27–38

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bennett WA, Currie RJ, Wagner PF, Beitinger TL (1997) Cold tolerance and potential overwintering of the Red-Bellied Piranha (Pygocentrus nattereri) in the United States. Trans Am Fish Soc 126:841–849

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buckley LB (2012) Functional and phylogenetic approaches to forecasting species’ responses to climate change. Annu Rev Ecol Evol Syst 43:205–226

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buckley LB, Tewksbury JJ, Deutsch CA (2013) Can terrestrial ectotherms escape the heat of climate change by moving? Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 280:20131149

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buisson L, Thuiller W, Lek S, Lim P, Grenouillet G (2008) Climate change hastens the turnover of stream fish assemblages. Glob Change Biol 14:2232–2248

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burnham KP, Anderson DR (2002) Model selection and multimodel inference: a practical information theoretic approach, 2nd edn. Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Cahill AE, Aiello-Lammens ME, Fisher-Reid MC, Hua X, Karanewsky CJ, Ryu HY, Sbeglia GC, Spagnolo F, Waldron JB, Warsi O, Wiens JJ (2012) How does climate change cause extinction? Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 280:20121890

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carlson CA, Muth RT (1989) The Colorado River: lifeline of the American Southwest. In: Proceedings of the international large river symposium, vol 106. Canadian Special Publication of Fisheries and Aquatic Science, pp 220–239

  • Christensen N, Lettenmaier DP (2007) A multi-model ensemble approach to assessment of climate change impacts on the hydrology and water resources of the Colorado River basin. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 3:1–44

    Google Scholar 

  • Chu C, Mandrak N, Minns CK (2005) Potential impacts of climate change on the distributions of several common and rare freshwater fishes in Canada. Divers Distrib 11:299–310

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Comte L, Buisson L, Daufresne M, Grenouillet G (2013) Climate-induced changes in the distribution of freshwater fish: observed and predicted trends. Freshw Biol 58:625–639

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Comte L, Murienne J, Grenouillet G (2014) Species traits and phylogenetic conservatism of climate-induced range shifts in stream fishes. Nat Commun 5:5023

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Crimmins SM, Dobrowski SZ, Greenberg JA, Abatzoglou JT, Mynsberge AR (2011) Change in climate water balance drive downhill shifts in plant species optimum elevations. Science 331:324–327

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Elith J, Graham CH, Anderson RP, Dudík M, Ferrier S, Guisan A, Hijmans RJ, Huettmann F, Leathwick JR, Leahmann A, Li J, Lohman LG, Loiselle BA, Manion G, Moritz C, Nakamura M, Nakazawa Y, McC OJ, Peterson AT, Phillips SJ, Richardson KS, Scachetti-Pereira R, Schapire RE, Soberón J, Williams S, Wisz MS, Zimmermann NE (2006) Novel methods improve prediction of species’ distributions from occurrence data. Ecography 29:129–151

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elith J, Kearney M, Phillips S (2010) The art of modelling range-shifting species. Methods Ecol Evol 1:330–342

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Estrada A, Morales-Castilla I, Caplat P, Early R (2016) Usefulness of species traits in predicting range shifts. Trends Ecol Evol 31:190–203

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ficke AD, Myrick CA, Hansen LJ (2007) Potential impacts of global climate change on freshwater fisheries. Rev Fish Biol Fish 17:581–613

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fielding AH, Bell JF (1997) A review of methods for the assessment of prediction errors in conservation presence/absence models. Environ Conserv 24:38–49

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Friedman JH (1991) Multivariate adaptive regression splines. Ann Stat 19:1–67

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fukushima M, Kameyama S, Kaneko M, Nakao K, Steel EA (2007) Modelling the effects of dams on freshwater fish distributions in Hokkaido, Japan. Freshw Biol 52:1511–1524

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gober P, Kirkwood CW (2010) Vulnerability assessment of climate-induced water shortage in Phoenix. Proc Nat Acad Sci USA 107:21295–21299

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Guisan A, Thuiller W (2005) Predicting species distribution: offering more than just simple habitat models. Ecol Lett 8:993–1009

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hampe A, Petit RJ (2005) Conserving biodiversity under climate change: the rear edge matters. Ecol Lett 8:461–467

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hastie T, Tibshirani RJ (1996) Discriminant analysis by Gaussian mixtures. J Roy Stat Soc B 58:155–176

    Google Scholar 

  • Hein C, Öhlund G, Englund G (2011) Dispersal through stream networks: modelling climate-driven range expansion of fishes. Divers Distrib 17:641–651

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heino J, Schmera D, Erös T (2013) A macroecological perspective of trait patterns in stream communities. Freshw Biol 58:1539–1551

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heino J, Melo AS, Siqueira T, Soininen J, Valanko S, Bini LM (2015) Metacommunity organization, spatial extent, and dispersal in aquatic systems: patterns, processes, and prospects. Freshw Biol 60:845–869

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hickling R, Roy DB, Hill JK, Fox R, Thomas CD (2006) The distributions of a wide range of taxonomic groups are expanding polewards. Glob Change Biol 12:450–455

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hostetler SW, Alder JR, Allan AM (2011) Dynamically downscaled climate simulations over North America: methods, evaluation and supporting documentation for users. U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2011-1238, p 64

  • Huey RB, Kearney MR, Krockenberger A, Holtum JAM, Jess M, Williams SE (2012) Predicting organismal vulnerability to climate warming: roles of behavior, physiology, and adaptation. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 367:1665–1679

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) Climate change 2007: impacts, adaptations and vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2014) Climate change 2014: impacts, adaptations, and vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • International Union for the Conservation of Nature (2015) IUCN red list of threatened species. Version 2015.4. Accessed 8 Dec 2015. http://www.iucnredlist.org

  • Jackson DA, Mandrak NE (2002) Changing fish biodiversity: predicting the loss of cyprinid biodiversity due to global climate change. In: McGinn NA (ed) Fisheries in a changing climate. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, pp 89–98

    Google Scholar 

  • Jaeger KL, Olden JD, Pelland NA (2014) Climate change poised to threaten hydrologic connectivity and endemic fishes in dryland streams. Proc Natl Acad Sci 111:13894–13899

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Kovach RP, Muhlfeld CC, Al-Chokhachy R, Dunham JB, Letcher BH, Kershner JL (2016) Impacts of climatic variation on trout: a global synthesis and path forward. Rev Fish Biol Fish 26:135–151

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • La Sorte FA, Jetz W (2012) Tracking of climatic niche boundaries under recent climate change. J Anim Ecol 81:914–925

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lawler JJ, Olden JD (2011) Reframing the debate over assisted colonization. Front Ecol Environ 9:569–574

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leathwick JR, Rowe D, Richardson J, Elith J, Hastie T (2005) Using multivariate adaptive regression splines to predict the distributions of New Zealand’s freshwater diadromous fish. Freshw Biol 50:2034–2052

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leibold MA, Holyoak M, Mouquet N, Amarasekare P, Chase JM, Hoopes MF, Holt RD, Shurin JB, Law R, Tilman D, Loreau M, Gonzalez A (2004) The metacommunity concept: a framework for multi-scale community ecology. Ecol Lett 7:601–613

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Loarie SR, Duffy PB, Hamilton HH, Asner GP, Field CB, Ackerly DD (2009) The velocity of climate change. Nature 462:1052–1055

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lynch AJ, Myers B, Chu C, Eby L, Falke J, Kovach R, Krabbenhoft T, Kwak T, Lyons J, Paukert C, Whitney J (2016) Climate change effects on North American inland fish populations and assemblages. Fisheries 41:346–361

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacCullagh P, Nelder JA (1984) Generalized linear models. University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • MacKenzie DM, Nichols JD, Lachman GB, Droege S, Royle A, Langtimm CA (2002) Estimating site occupancy rates when detection probabilities are less than one. Ecology 83:2248–2255

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marshall RM, Robbles MD, Majka DR, Haney JA (2010) Sustainable water management in the southwestern United States: Reality or rhetoric? PLoS ONE 5:11687

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Melles SJ, Chu C, Alofs KM, Jackson DA (2015) Potential spread of Great Lakes fishes given climate change and proposed dams: an approach using circuit theory to evaluate extinction risk. Landscape Ecol 30:919–935

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oksanen J, Blanchet FG, Kindt R, Legendre P, Minchin PR, O’Hara RB, Simpson GL, Solymos P, Stevens MHH, Wagner H (2015) Vegan: community ecology package. R package version 2.2-1

  • Olden JD, Poff NL (2005) Long-term trends of native and non-native fish faunas in the American Southwest. Anim Biodivers Conserv 28:75–89

    Google Scholar 

  • Olden JD, Poff N, Bestgen KR (2006) Life-history strategies predict fish invasions and extirpations in the Colorado River Basin. Ecol Monogr 76:25–40

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olden JD, Poff NL, Bestgen KR (2008) Trait synergisms and the rarity, extirpation, and extinction risk of desert fishes. Ecology 89:847–856

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Olden JD, Kennard MK, Leprieur F, Tedesco PA, Winemiller KO, García-Berthou E (2010) Conservation biogeography of freshwater fishes: past progress and future directions. Divers Distrib 16:496–513

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parmesan C, Yohe G (2003) A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems. Nature 421:37–42

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Paukert CP, Pitts KL, Whittier JB, Olden JD (2011) Development and assessment of a landscape-scale ecological threat index for the Lower Colorado River Basin. Ecol Ind 11:304–310

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearce J, Ferrier S (2000) Evaluating the predictive performance of habitat models developed using logistic regression. Ecol Model 133:225–245

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perry AL, Low PJ, Ellis JR, Reynolds JD (2005) Climate change and distribution shifts in marine fishes. Science 308:1912–1915

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pilger TJ, Gido KB, Propst DL (2010) Diet and trophic niche overlap of native and nonnative fishes in the Gila River, USA: implications for native fish conservation. Ecol Freshw Fish 19:300–321

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Poff NL, Pyne MI, Bledsoe BP, Cuhaciyan CC, Carlisle DM (2010) Developing linkages between species traits and multiscaled environmental variation to explore vulnerability of stream benthic communities to climate change. J N Am Benthol Soc 29:1441–1458

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pool TK, Olden JD, Whittier JB, Paukert CP (2010) Environmental drivers of fish functional diversity and composition in the Lower Colorado River Basin. Can J Fish Aquat Sci 67:1791–1807

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Radinger J, Wolter C (2013) Patterns and predictors of fish dispersal in rivers. Fish Fish 15:456–473

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rahel FJ, Olden JD (2008) Assessing the effects of climate change on aquatic invasive species. Conserv Biol 22:521–533

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Roeckner E, Bäuml G, Bonaventura L, Brokopf R, Esch M, Giorgetta M, Hagemann S, Kirchner I, Kornblueh L, Manzini E, Rhodin A, Schlese U, Schulzweida U, Tompkins A (2003) The atmospheric general circulation model ECHAM5. Part I: model description. Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg

    Google Scholar 

  • Roy K, Hunt G, Jablonski D (2009) Phylogenetic conservatism of extinctions in marine bivalves. Science 325:733–737

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ruhi A, Olden JD, Sabo JL (2016) Declining streamflow induces collapse and replacement of native fish in the American Southwest. Front Ecol Environ 14:465–472

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • R Core Team (2015) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. http://www.R-project.org/

  • Seager R, Ting M, Li C, Naik N, Cook B, Nakamura J, Liu H (2013) Projections of declining surface-water availability for the southwestern United States. Nat Clim Change 3:482–486

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Seifert LI, Weithoff G, Gaedke U, Vos M (2015) Warming-induced changes in predation, extinction and invasion in an ectotherm food web. Oecologia 2015:1–12

    Google Scholar 

  • Shmida A, Wilson MV (1985) Biological determinants of species diversity. J Biogeogr 12:1–20

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shurin JB, Clasen JL, Greig HS, Kratina P, Thompson PL (2012) Warming shifts top-down and bottom-up control of pond food web structure and function. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci 367:3008–3017

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Somero GN (2010) The physiology of climate change: how potentials for acclimatization and genetic adaptation will determine ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. J Exp Biol 213:912–920

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Stoll S, Kail J, Lorenz AW, Sundermann A, Haase P (2014) The importance of regional species pool, ecological species traits and local habitat conditions for the colonization of restored river reaches by fish. PLoS ONE 9:e84741

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Stoner AMK, Hayhoe K, Yang X, Wuebbles DJ (2013) An asynchronous regional regression model for statistical downscaling of daily climate variables. Int J Climatol 33:2473–2494

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Strecker AL, Olden JD, Whittier JB, Paukert CP (2011) Defining conservation priorities for freshwater fishes according to taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity. Ecol Appl 21:3002–3013

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sunday JM, Pecl GT, Frusher S, Hobday AJ, Hill N, Holbrook NJ, Edgar GF, Stuart-Smith R, Barrett N, Wernberg T, Watson RA, Smale DA, Fulton EA, Slawinski D, Feng M, Radford BT, Thompson PA, Bates AE (2015) Species traits and climate velocity explain geographic range shifts in an ocean-warming hotspot. Ecol Lett 18:944–953

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Thomas CD (2010) Climate, climate change and range boundaries. Divers Distrib 16:488–495

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thuiller W, Lavergne S, Roquet C, Boulangeat I, Lafourcade B, Araujo MB (2011) Consequences of climate change on the tree of life in Europe. Nature 470:531–534

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Urban MC (2015) Accelerating extinction risk from climate change. Science 348:571–573

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • van dan Wollenberg AL (1977) Redundancy analysis: an alternative for canonical correlation analysis. Psychometrika 42:207–291

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ward RD, Woodwark M, Skibinski DOF (1994) A comparison of genetic diversity levels in marine, freshwater, and anadromous fishes. J Fish Biol 44:213–232

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Warren MS, Hill JK, Thomas JA, Asher J, Fox R, Huntley D, Roy B, Telfer MG, Jeffcoate S, Harding P, Jeffcoate G, Willis SG, Greatorex-Davies JN, Moss D, Thomas CD (2001) Rapid responses of British butterflies to opposing forces of climate and habitat change. Nature 414:65–69

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Webb PW (1984) Form and function in fish swimming. Sci Am 251:72–82

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Webb PW, Weihs D (1986) Functional locomotor morphology of early life history stages of fish. Trans Am Fish Soc 115:115–127

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whitney JE, Gido KB, Propst DL (2014) Factors associated with the success of native and nonnative species in an unfragmented arid-land riverscape. Can J Fish Aquat Sci 71:1134–1145

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whittier JB, Paukert CP, Olden JD, Pitts KL, Strecker AL (2011) Lower Colorado River Basin aquatic gap analysis project: final report. U.S. Geological Survey, Gap Analysis Program, Reston, Virginia, USA

  • Williams S, Shoo L, Isaac J, Hoffmann A, Langham G (2008) Towards an integrated framework for assessing the vulnerability of species to climate change. PLoS Biol 6:e325

    Article  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Xenopoulos MA, Lodge DM, Alcamo J, Märker M, Schulze K, Van Vuuren DP (2005) Scenarios of freshwater fish extinctions from climate change and water withdrawal. Glob Change Biol 11:1557–1564

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank the U.S. National Aquatic Gap Analysis Program, the U.S. National Climate Change and Wildlife Sciences Center, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for funding provided to complete this project. The fish occurrence database used for this research reflects countless hours of field research and data organization by stakeholders who provided their datasets. In particular, we owe a debt of gratitude to Arizona Game and Fish Department, Arizona Natural Heritage Program, New Mexico Environment Department, Utah Natural Heritage Program, Nevada Department of Wildlife, Museum of Southwestern Biology at the University of New Mexico, Arizona State University, and Arizona Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit for sharing their datasets. Previous versions of this manuscript benefitted from insightful comments by Dan Dauwalter of Trout Unlimited, Jane Fencl of the University of Washington, the Missouri Cooperative Fisheries and Wildlife Research Unit Aquatic Sciences Journal Club, Colleen Caldwell of New Mexico State University, Janine Powell of the U.S. Geological Survey, three anonymous reviewers, and the journal editors. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government or other sponsoring or participating agencies. The Missouri Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is sponsored by the Missouri Department of Conservation, the University of Missouri, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Wildlife Management Institute.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to James E. Whitney.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 49 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Whitney, J.E., Whittier, J.B., Paukert, C.P. et al. Forecasted range shifts of arid-land fishes in response to climate change. Rev Fish Biol Fisheries 27, 463–479 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-017-9479-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-017-9479-9

Keywords

Navigation