The seasonal climate niche predicts phenology and distribution of an ephemeral annual plant, Mollugo verticillata

1.Many short-lived species complete their life cycles during brief seasonal windows of favorable environmental conditions. Such species may persist in the face of climate warming by migration to track their seasonal climate niche in space and/or by phenological shifts to track favorable conditions in time within the year. To describe the seasonal climate niche of the short-lived annual Mollugo verticillata in California, we used data from herbarium specimens and historic climate records to estimate environmental conditions at the location, month and year of each collection.

2.We used these data in a MaxEnt framework to construct a seasonal species distribution model (SDM) of the species’ climate niche within the total climate space available across all seasons and locations in California. The model provides fine-scale spatial and temporal predictions of habitat suitability, predicting both where and when the species should be observed.

3.We compared the predictions of the model to...

1. 许多短命物种的生活周期仅能在适宜环境条件的短暂季节性窗口内完成。面对气候变暖，这类物种可通过两种策略实现存续：一是空间迁徙以追踪其季节性气候生态位（climate niche），二是物候调整以在年内及时追踪适宜环境条件。为描述加利福尼亚州短命一年生植物轮叶粟米草（*Mollugo verticillata*）的季节性气候生态位，我们借助标本馆标本数据与历史气候记录，估算了每份标本的采集地点、采集月份及采集年份的环境条件。
2. 我们将上述数据应用于最大熵模型（MaxEnt）框架，构建了该物种在加利福尼亚州全季节与全区域可用整体气候空间内的季节性物种分布模型（SDM），以刻画其气候生态位。该模型可输出精细尺度的时空生境适宜性预测结果，从而预判该物种的观测地点与观测时段。
3. 我们将该模型的预测结果与……进行了对比。