Ecological resilience and resistance to extreme weather events - review data

Extreme weather events (EWEs) are expected to increase in stochasticity,
frequency, and intensity due to climate change. Documented effects of
EWEs, such as droughts, hurricanes, and temperature extremes, range from
shifting community stable states to species extirpations. To date, little
attention has been paid to how populations resist and/or recover from EWEs
through compensatory (behavioural, demographic or physiological)
mechanisms; limiting the capacity to predict species responses to future
changes in EWEs. Here, we systematically reviewed the global variation in
species’ demographic responses, resistance to, and recovery from EWEs
across weather types, species, and biogeographic regions. Through a
literature review and meta-analysis, we tested the prediction that
population abundance and probability of persistence will decrease in
populations after an EWE and how compensation affects that probability.
Across 524 species population responses to EWEs reviewed (27 articles), we
noted large variation in responses, such that, on average, the effect of
EWEs on population demographics was not negative as predicted. The
majority of species populations (80.4%) demonstrated compensatory
mechanisms during events to reduce their deleterious effects. However, for
populations that were negatively impacted, the demographic consequences
were severe. Nearly 20% of the populations monitored experienced declines
of over 50% after an EWE, and 6.8% of populations were extirpated.
Population declines were reflected in a reduction in survival. Further,
resilience was not common, as 80.0% of populations that declined did not
recover to before EWE levels while monitored. However, average monitoring
time was only two years with over a quarter of studies tracking recovery
for less than the study species generation time. We conclude that EWEs
have positive and negative impacts on species demography, and this varies
by taxa. Species population recovery over short time intervals is rare,
but long-term studies are required to accurately assess species resilience
to current and future events.