Bridging the Time Gap: How Ecosystems Respond to a Rapidly Changing Climate
When we talk about climate change, we often think in extremes—heat waves, vanishing glaciers, and species on the brink. But nature’s responses to these shifts are far more nuanced, and according to a new paper co-authored by the Centre for Ecosystem Management’s Dr. Joey Bernhardt, understanding when ecosystems respond may be just as important as understanding how they respond.
Figure 1: The bars to the right of the chart show examples of ecological acclimation processes, color-coded by the timescale at which they occur, with red representing the faster processes, and blue the slowest. The height and fading gradients of the bars represent variation and uncertainty about the timescale of the processes. In the chart, darker green represents the timescales of processes that have the greatest influence on – or applicability for – predictions made at the corresponding timescales. The dashed line shows the one-to-one relationship.
The study, led by ecologists Michael Stemkovski and Peter Adler at Utah State University, presents a new framework for forecasting climate change impacts on ecosystems—one that centers on timescales. While researchers have long studied how individual species or traits respond to environmental pressures, this new work argues that bringing short- and long-term responses under one conceptual roof—what they call ecological acclimation—can dramatically improve our ability to anticipate change.
“All these processes drive ecosystems toward equilibrium with the climate, but they operate at very different speeds,” said Stemkovski. Fast responses include physiological plasticity or shifts in seasonal timing, like earlier flowering or bird migration. Slower ones, like species migration, evolutionary adaptation, or long-term soil shifts, can take decades or even centuries.
This mismatch in pace creates a forecasting blind spot—one that affects not only science, but how we manage forests, fisheries, and conservation lands. “It’s a bit like weather prediction,” Stemkovski explained. “We’re good at five-day forecasts and century-long climate projections—but not so great at knowing what the next 20 years will look like.” And yet, it’s precisely those middle decades that matter most for policy and resource planning.
For example, early climate experiments found that warming soils lost carbon quickly. But after a decade, carbon levels rebounded and even began to increase, as slower processes—like plant community shifts from grasses to shrubs—took hold. This long-term pattern would have gone unnoticed in shorter studies.
That’s where this new framework becomes powerful. By bringing together fast and slow dynamics—immediate reactions and long-term transformations—it offers natural resource managers a more realistic toolkit for decision-making. Dr. Bernhardt and other contributors emphasize that understanding both kinds of processes is key to investing in strategies that won’t backfire later.
“There’s a risk in acting only on short-term data,” said Adler. “We might think a system is degrading, when in fact it's just adjusting. But if we wait too long, we could miss the chance to intervene meaningfully.”
Photo credit: Hiroko Yoshii
In ecosystems dominated by long-lived species—think old-growth forests or coral reefs—the slow pace of adaptation leaves them especially vulnerable. For natural resource managers, this research offers more than just theory—it provides a practical lens for decision-making. By recognizing that ecological responses to climate change unfold on different timescales, managers can better interpret the signals they’re seeing in real time. Short-term shifts like changes in flowering dates or species abundance might not reflect long-term outcomes. The framework of ecological acclimation encourages a more strategic approach, helping managers weigh when to act, when to wait, and how to design interventions—like assisted migration—that align with both fast and slow ecological processes. In a world where short-term data often drives long-term decisions, this kind of clarity is invaluable.
Ultimately, the researchers argue, no single model can capture all the complexity of ecological responses. But acknowledging and accounting for timescales allows scientists and decision-makers to make better use of the tools we do have. According to Adler, making accurate forecasts begins with asking the right questions—and considering the timescales those questions span.
This post draws on findings from new research on ecological acclimation to climate change, featuring work by USU ecologists and CEM's Dr. Joey Bernhardt. Learn more in the full study.
[Photo by Towfiqu Barbhuiya on Unsplash]