Ilya M. D. Maclean

University of Exeter | UoE · College of Life and Environmental Sciences

The Arctic is the region on Earth that is warming at the fastest rate. In addition to rising means of temperature-related variables, Arctic ecosystems are affected by increasingly frequent extreme weather events causing disturbance to Arctic ecosystems. Here, we introduce a new dataset of bioclimatic indices relevant for investigating the changes o...

Landscape‐scale approaches are increasingly advocated for species conservation but ensuring landscape level persistence by enlarging the size of patches or increasing their physical connectivity is often impractical. Here, we test how such barriers can be overcome by management of habitat at the local (site‐based) level, using a rare butterfly as a...

A core challenge in global change biology is to predict how species will respond to future environmental change and to manage these responses. To make such predictions and management actions robust to novel futures, we need to accurately characterize how organisms experience their environments and the biological mechanisms by which they respond. Al...

A challenge in global change biology is to predict how species will respond to future environmental change and to manage these responses. To make such predictions and management actions robust to novel futures, we need to accurately characterize how organisms experience their environments and the biological mechanisms by which they respond. All org...

Aim Species distribution models (SDMs) have been used widely to predict the responses of species to climate change. However, the climate data used to drive these models typically represents ambient air temperatures, derived from measurements taken 1–2 m above the ground. Most plant species live near the ground where temperatures can differ signific...

Climate-driven geographic range shifts have been associated with transitions between dietary specialism and generalism at range margins. The mechanisms underpinning these often transient niche breadth modifications are poorly known, but utilization of novel resources likely depends on phenological synchrony between the consumer and resource. We use...

Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we...

Microclimate models predict temperature and other meteorological variables at scales relevant to individual organisms. The broad application of microclimate models requires gridded macroclimatic variables as input. However, the spatial and temporal resolution of such inputs can be a limiting factor on the accuracy of microclimate predictions. Due t...

The expectation that places with suitable climate will lie outside the current range of many species has shaped 21st century conservation policy and led to predictions of numerous extinctions. We show that the magnitude of range shifts is often overestimated because the climate data typically used do not reflect the microclimatic conditions that ma...

Spatial sampling biases in biodiversity data arise because of complex interactions between geography, species characteristics and human behaviour, including preferences for or against particular species or habitats; biases are therefore not necessarily independent of the environmental niches of species. We evaluate when correlations between spatial...

Climate change can not only increase the exposure of organisms to higher temperatures but can also drive phenological shifts that alter their susceptibility to conditions at the onset of breeding cycles. Organisms rely on climatic cues to time annual life cycle events, but the extent to which climate change has altered cue reliability remains uncle...

Aim Microclimate information is often crucial for understanding ecological patterns and processes, including under climate change, but is typically absent from ecological and biogeographic studies owing to difficulties in obtaining microclimate data. Recent advances in microclimate modelling, however, suggest that microclimate conditions can now be...

Climate-driven geographic range shifts have been associated with transitions between dietary specialism and generalism at range margins. The mechanisms underpinning these often transient niche breadth modifications are poorly known, but utilisation of novel resources likely depends on phenological synchrony between the consumer and resource. We use...

Remote sensing has revolutionised many aspects of ecological research, enabling spatiotemporal data to be collected in an efficient and highly automated manner. The last two decades have seen phenomenal growth in capabilities for high-resolution remote sensing that increasingly offers opportunities to study small, but ecologically important organis...

Ecological research heavily relies on coarse-­gridded climate data based on standardized temperature measurements recorded at 2 m height in open landscapes. However, many organisms experience environmental conditions that differ substantially from those captured by these macroclimatic (i.e. free air) temperature grids. In forests, the tree canopy f...

The consequences of climate change for biogeographic range dynamics depend on the spatial scales at which climate influences focal species directly and indirectly via biotic interactions. An overlooked question concerns the extent to which microclimates modify specialist biotic interactions, with emergent properties for communities and range dynami...

Climate strongly influences ecological patterns and processes at scales ranging from local to global. Studies of ecological responses to climate usually rely on data derived from weather stations, where temperature and humidity may differ substantially from that in the microenvironments in which organisms reside. To help remedy this, we present a m...

Protected area networks seek to ensure the persistence of multiple species, but their area and extent are limited by available land and conservation resources. Prioritising sites based on their quality, quantity, size, or connectivity is often proposed; potentially using the occupancy and metapopulation dynamics of individual threatened species as...

Aim Species respond to environmental conditions and so reliable assessments of climate suitability are important for predicting how climate change could alter their distributions. Long‐term average climate data are often used to evaluate the climate suitability of an area, but in these aggregated climate datasets, inter‐annual variability is lost....

Context Against a background of unprecedented climate change, humanity faces the challenge of how to increase global food production without compromising the natural environment. Crop suitability models can indicate the best locations to grow different crops and, in doing so, support efficient use of land to leave space for, or share space with, na...

Context Climate change will alter the global distribution of climatically suitable space for many species, including agricultural crops. In some locations, warmer temperatures may offer opportunities to grow novel, high value crops, but non-climatic factors also inform agricultural decision-making. These non-climatic factors can be difficult to qua...

Many organisms live in environments in which temperatures differ substantially from those measured by standard weather stations. The last decade has witnessed a paradigm shift in efforts to quantify these differences and to understand their ecological, functional and evolutionary implications. This renewed interest in microclimate ecology has been...

Research in environmental science relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature at around 2 meter above ground1-3. These climatic grids however fail to reflect conditions near and below the soil surface, where critical ecosystem functions such as soil carbon storage are controlled and most biodiversity resides4-8...

Context Microclimate (fine-scale temperature variability within metres of Earth’s surface) is highly influential on terrestrial organisms’ ability to survive and function. Understanding how such local climatic conditions vary is challenging to measure at adequate spatio-temporal resolution. Microclimate models provide the means to address this limi...

Motivation More than half of Earth's species are contained in a mere 1.4% of its land area, but the climates of many of these biodiversity hotspots are projected to disappear as a consequence of anthropogenic climate change. There is growing recognition that spatio‐temporal patterns of climate in biodiversity hotspots have shaped biological diversi...

Microclimate information is often crucial for understanding ecological patterns and processes, including under climate change, but is typically absent from ecological and biogeographic studies owing to difficulties in obtaining microclimate data. Recent advances in microclimate modelling, however, suggest that microclimate conditions can now be pre...

This book is a collection of 77 expert opinions arranged in three sections. Section 1 on "Climate" sets the scene, including predictions of future climate change, how climate change affects ecosystems, and how to model projections of the spatial distribution of ticks and tick-borne infections under different climate change scenarios. Section 2 on "...

The report details the development of a conceptual framework, based upon the doughnut economics model of Kate Raworth (2012), that employs multiple indicators in order to establish an integrated assessment method for monitoring social and ecological conditions in Cornwall towards agreed strategic priorities.

Legislation commonly mandates the mitigation of impacts to biodiversity in planning and development processes, with potential impacts identified through some form of ecological impact assessment. Yet, protections for biodiversity are frequently undermined because the distributions of priority species are poorly known in most locations at the spatia...

Current analyses and predictions of spatially‐explicit patterns and processes in ecology most often rely on climate data interpolated from standardized weather stations. This interpolated climate data represents long‐term average thermal conditions at coarse spatial resolutions only. Hence, many climate‐forcing factors that operate at fine spatiote...

The impacts of the changing climate on the biological world vary across latitudes, habitats and spatial scales. By contrast, the time of day at which these changes are occurring has received relatively little attention. As biologically significant organismal activities often occur at particular times of day, any asymmetry in the rate of change betw...

Many analyses of biological responses to climate rely on gridded climate data derived from weather stations, which differ from the conditions experienced by organisms in at least two respects. First, the microclimate recorded by a weather station is often quite different to that near the ground surface, where many organisms live. Second, the tempor...

ContextClimate change is a severe threat to biodiversity. Areas with a high variety of microclimates may provide opportunities for species to persist in a changing climate.Objectives Test the extent to which microclimate is an important determinant of the distribution of a widespread upland passerine, the meadow pipit Anthus pratensis, and whether...

Aim Climate classification systems (CCSs) can be used to predict how species’ distributions might be altered by climate change and to increase the reliability of these estimates is an important goal in biogeographical research. We produce an objective, global climate classification system (CCS) at high temporal resolution based on plant physiology...

Current analyses and predictions of spatially‐explicit patterns and processes in ecology most often rely on climate data interpolated from standardized weather stations. This interpolated climate data represents long‐term average thermal conditions at coarse spatial resolutions only. Hence, many climate‐forcing factors that operate at fine spatiote...

Microclimates are the thermal and hydric environments organisms actually experience and estimates of them are increasingly needed in environmental research. The availability of global weather and terrain data sets, together with increasingly sophisticated microclimate modelling tools, makes the prospect of a global, web‐based microclimate estimatio...

Citizen science plays an increasingly important role in biodiversity research and conservation, enabling large volumes of data to be gathered across extensive spatial scales in a cost-effective manner. Open access increases the utility of such data, informing land-use decisions that may affect species persistence, enhancing transparency and encoura...

Most studies of the biological effects of future climatic changes rely on seasonally aggregated, coarse‐resolution data. Such data mask spatial and temporal variability in microclimate driven by terrain, wind and vegetation and ultimately bear little resemblance to the conditions that organisms experience in the wild. Here, I present methods for pr...

Species‐focused conservation planning is often based on reducing local extinction risk at key sites. However, with increasing levels of habitat fragmentation and pressures from climate change and overexploitation, surrounding landscapes also influence the persistence of species populations, and their effects are increasingly incorporated in conserv...

Aim Species distribution models (SDMs) have played a pivotal role in predicting how species might respond to climate change. To generate reliable and realistic predictions from these models requires the use of climate variables that adequately capture physiological responses of species to climate and therefore provide a proximal link between climat...

1.Climate is of fundamental importance to the ecology and evolution of all organisms. However, studies of climate–organism interactions usually rely on climate variables interpolated from widely‐spaced measurements or modelled at coarse resolution, whereas the conditions experienced by many organisms vary over scales from millimetres to metres. 2.T...

Protecting biodiversity against the impacts of climate change requires effective conservation strategies that safeguard species at risk of extinction¹. Microrefugia allowed populations to survive adverse climatic conditions in the past2,3, but their potential to reduce extinction risk from anthropogenic warming is poorly understood3–5, hindering ou...

The sheep tick (Ixodes ricinus L.) is responsible for transmitting a wide range of bacterial, viral and protozoan infections in the UK, including the bacterial agent responsible for Lyme borreliosis which is the most common vector-borne disease in humans in the northern hemisphere. Accurate modelling of the timing and location of Ixodes ricinus ac...

Most ecological studies of the effects of climate on species are based on average conditions above ground level (measured by meteorological stations) averaged across 100 km2 or larger areas. However, most terrestrial organisms experience conditions in a much smaller area at the ground surface or within vegetation canopies, the climate of which can...

Although the number of studies discerning the impact of climate change on ecological systems continues to increase, there has been relatively little sharing of the lessons learnt when accumulating this evidence. At a recent workshop entitled ‘Using climate data in ecological research’ held at the UK Met Office, ecologists and climate scientists cam...

Savanna ecosystems are an integral part of the African landscape and sustain the livelihoods of millions of people. Woody encroachment in savannas is a widespread phenomenon but its causes are widely debated. We review the extensive literature on woody encroachment to help improve understanding of the possible causes and to highlight where and how...

Landscape-scale approaches to conservation stem largely from the classic ideas of reserve design: encouraging bigger and more sites, enhancing connectivity among sites, and improving habitat quality. Trade-offs are imposed between these four strategies by the limited resources and opportunities available for conservation programmes, including the e...

Compilations of previous studies provide researchers with a source of valuable secondary data for re-analysis, an access route to identify relevant literature and an opportunity to systematically evaluate the research which is conducted and published. Recently Suggitt et al. (2015 Veg Hist Archbot 24, 743–747) presented a valuable compilation of co...

The Falkland Islands are predicted to experience up to 2.2°C rise in mean annual temperature over the coming century, greater than four times the rate over the last century. Our study investigates likely vulnerabilities of a suite of range-restricted species whose distributions are associated with archipelago-wide climatic variation. We used presen...

Conservationists have historically advocated measures that limit human disturbance. Nevertheless, natural disturbances are important components of many ecosystems and their associated species are often adapted to such regimes. In consequence, conservation managers frequently simulate natural disturbance, particularly in temperate forest systems. Th...

The cultivation of grapevines for winemaking, known as viticulture, is widely cited as a climate-sensitive agricultural system that has been used as an indicator of both historic and contemporary climate change. Numerous studies have questioned the viability of major viticulture regions under future climate projections. We review the methods used t...

Appendix S2. Additional information and references associated with Table 1.

Appendix S3. Additional information and references associated with Table 2.

Table S1. Scheme for scoring the strength of evidence from individual studies.

Table S2. Scheme for scoring the strength of evidence from multiple studies.

Table S3. Assessment of strength of evidence and risk of failure associated with each study.

Appendix S1. Details of systematic literature review.

The existence of fine-grain climate heterogeneity has prompted suggestions that species may be able to survive future climate change in pockets of suitable microclimate, termed 'microrefugia'. However, evidence for microrefugia is hindered by lack of understanding of how rates of warming vary across a landscape. Here we present a model that is appl...

Successful conservation will increasingly depend on our ability to help species cope with climate change. While there has been much attention on accommodating or assisting range shifts, less has been given to the alternative strategy of helping species survive climate change through in situ management. Here we provide a synthesis of published evide...

The cultivation of grapevines in the UK and many other cool climate regions is expected to benefit from the higher growing season temperatures predicted under future climate scenarios. Yet the effects of climate change on the risk of adverse weather conditions or events at key stages of crop development are not always captured by aggregated measure...

AimDespite predictions of high extinction risk resulting from climate change, range expansions have been documented more frequently than range retractions, prompting suggestions that species can endure climatic changes by persisting in cool or damp microclimates. We test whether such ‘microrefugia’ exist.LocationThe United Kingdom.Methods We examin...

We welcome the response of Tooley (2015) to our article describing a new meta-database of Holocene sediment cores for England. In our article we describe the online publication of this meta-database, arising from systematic meta-search. We define its scope and the meta-data it contains, before providing the data themselves (in the Electronic Supple...

Extracting sediment cores for palaeoecological and archaeological investigations has occurred extensively across England since the early 20th century. Surprisingly, there has been comparatively little collation of these valuable publications and potential sources of data; for example, a search on the European Pollen Database (1st Aug 2014 edition)...

Microclimate has been known to drive variation in the distribution and abundance of insects for some time. Until recently however, quantification of microclimatic effects has been limited by computing constraints and the availability of fine-scale biological data. Here, we tested fine-scale patterns of persistence/extinction in butterflies and moth...

1.Fire is an integral process in savannas because it plays a crucial role in altering woody cover of this globally important biome.2.In this study we examine the long term effects of varying fire frequencies over a 60 year time period in South Africa. We analyse the effects of fire exclusion and of experimental burns every 1, 2 and 3 years on woody...

Growing concerns about climate change and energy security have fuelled a rapid increase in the development of offshore and marine renewable energy installations (OMREIs). The potential ecological consequences of increased use of these devices emphasises the need for high quality environmental impact assessment (EIA). We demonstrate that these proce...

Potter et al., (2013) highlight the challenges and provide recommendations for progress in representing microclimate in Species Distribution Models (SDMs), which are widely used to predict distributions by establishing relationships between climatic variables and species presence. They show that the grid lengths of published SDMs are typically four...

Coastal ecosystems are centres of high biological productivity, but their conservation is often threatened by numerous and complex environmental factors. Citing examples from the major littoral habitats worldwide, such as sandy beaches, salt marshes and mangrove swamps, this text characterises the biodiversity of coastline environments and highligh...

Papyrus Cyperus papyrus swamps sustain the livelihoods of millions of people, but threats to this habitat have never been quantified formally. Birds are useful indicators of threats that cannot be measured directly. Using satellite imagery classification and habitat associated modelling, we quantify drainage and present International Union for Cons...

There has been considerable recent concern about the plight of seabirds globally, as many species have declined substantially. In the UK there are statutory needs to monitor seabirds at sea, particularly in light of new offshore areas being designated for conservation and plans for major offshore wind farm developments. However, the extent to which...

Soil moisture and surface water conditions are key determinants of plant community composition and ecosystem function, and predicting such conditions is an important step in understanding the ecological consequences of environmental change. Typically, hydrological models that use real landscape features do not simulate water conditions at the fine...