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Rebecca Lovell

@rebeccalovell.bsky.social

120 followers 160 following 9 posts

Quantitative evolutionary ecologist 👩‍💻🐦🦋🌿 Currently a Postdoc at the University of Aberdeen (she/her)

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Rebecca Lovell @rebeccalovell.bsky.social · Feb 28

🦋 New paper out in @funecology.bsky.social! 🦋

Using the Orange-tip butterfly in the UK🦋, we test a key assumption of many species’ distribution models (SDMs): that climate effects on species’ distributions are equivalent over space🌍 versus time⏰

doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.70005

🧵👇

Testing space‐for‐time transferability of climate effects on occupancy and abundance

Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

doi.org

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Reposted by Rebecca Lovell

Margaret Evans @mekevans.bsky.social · Jul 31

New paper out on the dangers of using patterns across spatial climate gradients to predict what will happen with changing climate. That includes species distribution modeling. Space-for-time substitution can be misleading in sign, not just the magnitude of effects.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Reconsidering space-for-time substitution in climate change ecology - Nature Climate Change

Ecologists often leverage patterns observed across spatial climate gradients to predict the impacts of climate change (space-for-time substitution). We highlight evidence that this can be misleading n...

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Rebecca Lovell

Megan Thompson @meganjthompson.bsky.social · Feb 25

Our common garden experiment with urban and forest great tits is out early view in Evolution! doi.org/10.1093/evol... @denisreale.bsky.social @annecharmantier.bsky.social

Visual representation of common garden procedure.

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Rebecca Lovell @rebeccalovell.bsky.social · Feb 28

Our results suggest that the reliability of space-for-time projections can be very context-dependent, even for a single species 🦋

But, we also show how spatiotemporal datasets provide an opportunity to test the key assumptions of causality and space-for-time transferability that underlie many SDMs.

Rebecca Lovell @rebeccalovell.bsky.social · Feb 28

We found that the level of equivalence between spatial and temporal temperature-distribution relationships varies across different temperatures within the species’ range 🌡️, with patterns differing between occupancy vs abundance 🦋

Figure depicting spatial and temporal temperature-abundance and temperature-occuancy relationships for the orange tip butterfly in the UK, and the difference between these spatial and temporal slopes across the orange tip's range. Temperature generally has a positive effect on abundance and probability of presence in both space and time. Spatial and temporal temperature-occuapncy slopes are significantly different below 19.7°C, with the slope in time shallower than the slope in space. The slopes do not differ above 19.7°C, where both spatial and temporal slopes flatten. Temperature-abundance slopes do not differ at lower temperatures, but do differ above 16.4°C, where the temporal slope becomes increasingly shallower than the spatial slope.

Rebecca Lovell @rebeccalovell.bsky.social · Feb 28

We then apply a statistical approach that allows comparison of the spatial and temporal effects of temperature on two distribution metrics – occupancy (presence/absence) and abundance 🦋

Rebecca Lovell @rebeccalovell.bsky.social · Feb 28

Using @ukbms.bsky.social records of the Orange-tip butterfly’s abundance in the UK, we first apply a sliding window approach to identify when in the year temperature is most predictive of abundance🌡️🦋…

Figure depicting the orange tip butterfly's lifecycle and the AICs of models including different temperature windows as predictors of orange tip abundance. A seasonal pattern in AICs is depicted, with models including temperatures in May-July of the previous year having the lowest AICs. This corresponds to a period where the Orange-tip adults, eggs and larvae are all present.

Rebecca Lovell @rebeccalovell.bsky.social · Feb 28

Projecting species’ future distributions often involves ‘space-for-time substitutions’ where relationships between climate variables & species’ distributions are identified in space & then projected over time 🌍→⏰

This assumes that these relationships are causal & equivalent in space and time 🌍=⏰?

Conceptual figure depicting possible patterns of spatial and temporal climate-distribution relationships that may be seen across a species' range. Spatial relationships are hump-shaped, with temporal relationships as local deviations from this curve. In some instances, spatial and temporal slopes are similar, meaning that a space-for-time substitution would be valid. In other instances, these slopes are in the same direction, but the response in time is shallower, consistant with a lagging response in time. Here, space-for-time substitution may be valid in the long-term. In some cases, the response in time is flat, or the spatial and temporal slopes are in opposite directions, suggesting that the climate variable is not having a causal effect. The level of similarity between spatial and temporal slopes may vary across a species' climate range.

Rebecca Lovell @rebeccalovell.bsky.social · Feb 28

Testing space‐for‐time transferability of climate effects on occupancy and abundance

Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

doi.org

1 10 28

Rebecca Lovell @rebeccalovell.bsky.social · Feb 25

Very excited to say that earlier this month I passed my PhD viva! 🦋👩‍💻

Thanks to @lancasterlt.bsky.social and Jarrod Hadfield for a really interesting discussion, and of course to @allyphillimore.bsky.social for being the most wonderful supervisor! #PhDone

Me with my viva cake. The cake has an Orange-tip butterfly and the words "Dr Becca" on it.

A printed copy of my thesis titled "Climate impacts on species’ distributions in space and time"

Rebecca Lovell @rebeccalovell.bsky.social · Dec 12

Another awesome talk from the group from Alex Reiss 🐝 #BES2024

Alex Reiss giving a talk titled 'Repeated host shifting in the global radiation of gallwasps'

Rebecca Lovell @rebeccalovell.bsky.social · Dec 11

Fantastic talks from my lab mates @ilarialonero.bsky.social and Megan Stamp 🐦🐛 #BES2024

Ilaria Lonero giving a talk on 'Incubation thermal niche and niche tracking in temperate passerine'

Megan Stamp giving a talk on the drivers of caterpillar community composition, in front of a slide introducing the Phenoweb transect.

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Reposted by Rebecca Lovell

Susan Eshelman @s-eshelman.bsky.social · Dec 11

Excited to present my PhD research at #BES2024 today! 🌾Join me at 16:00 in Auditorium 1C as I dive into how species turnover and intraspecific trait plasticity shape grass community responses to grazing. See you there!

Susan Eshelman @s-eshelman.bsky.social · Dec 4

Grazing is reshaping grasslands in the Scottish Uplands—but how? 🌾 Are species shifting, or are traits like plant height changing within species? 🤔 Find out next Wednesday at #BES2024 (Auditorium 1C) when I present my PhD research on Scottish grass communities

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