The ecological forecast horizon, and examples of its uses and determinants

Owen Petchey , Mikael Pontarp , Thomas Massie , Sonia Kéfi (1) , Arpat Ozgul (2) , Maja Weilenmann , Gian Marco Palamara , Florian Altermatt (3) , Blake Matthews , Jonathan Levine , Dylan Childs , Brian Mcgill , Michael Schaepman (4) , Bernhard Schmid (2) , Piet Spaak , Andrew Beckerman , Frank Pennekamp (5) , Ian Pearse

1 UMR ISEM - Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier
2 IEU - Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies
3 Department of Aquatic Ecology
4 Department of Geography [Zürich]
5 UZH - Universität Zürich [Zürich] = University of Zurich

Forecasts of ecological dynamics in changing environments are increasingly important, and are available for a plethora of variables, such as species abundance and distribution, community structure and ecosystem processes. There is, however, a general absence of knowledge about how far into the future, or other dimensions (space, temperature, phylogenetic distance), useful ecological forecasts can be made, and about how features of ecological systems relate to these distances. The ecological forecast horizon is the dimensional distance for which useful forecasts can be made. Five case studies illustrate the influence of various sources of uncertainty (e.g. parameter uncertainty, environmental variation, demographic stochasticity and evolution), level of ecological organisation (e.g. population or community), and organismal properties (e.g. body size or number of trophic links) on temporal, spatial and phylogenetic forecast horizons. Insights from these case studies demonstrate that the ecological forecast horizon is a flexible and powerful tool for researching and communicating ecological predictability. It also has potential for motivating and guiding agenda setting for ecological forecasting research and development.

Mots clés: Dynamics; ecosystems; environmental change; forecasting; futures; prediction; scenarios

Domaines: Biodiversité et Ecologie

Owen Petchey, Mikael Pontarp, Thomas Massie, Sonia Kéfi, Arpat Ozgul, et al.. The ecological forecast horizon, and examples of its uses and determinants. Ecology Letters, 2015, 18 (7), pp.597 - 611. ⟨10.1111/ele.12443⟩. ⟨hal-01938677⟩