Altitudinal changes in species distributions and their effect on total diversity: the influence of latitude and climate change

Climate has often been identified as the main determinant of species' ranges, so climate change is expected to cause changes in species distributions. Recent research has identified climate-induced shifts in the altitudinal and latitudinal distribution of a variety of taxa; however the interaction between these two types of distributional shifts has rarely been studied. Elevation shifts may have the capacity to mask latitudinal shifts by delaying the extinction of species at a regional scale. Although species are likely to respond individually to climate change, the overall consequences of these changes will determine changes to biodiversity as a whole. Thus, exploring the interaction between altitudinal and latitudinal shifts is fundamental to our understanding of the potential effects of climate change on regional and global biodiversity. This project will investigate altitudinal changes in dung beetle species in five mountain regions along a latitudinal transect in Europe, where previous data are available from 14 to 26 years ago. I will test whether altitudinal occurrence of species in each area has increased since the previous survey, whether these changes are as great as would be expected given the amount of warming that has taken place, and whether these changes are related to the latitudinal position of the mountain range. Finally, I will explore the consequences of individual species shifts for both local and regional species richness.