Identifying controls of plant range distributions by experimentally manipulating climate across natural climatic gradients

A key challenge in global change ecology is understanding how climate change will impact biodiversity through changes in species range distributions.  It is increasingly recognized that a mechanistic approach that fuses theory with experimentation, synthesized using demographic models, is needed to understand the controls on species range limits.  Experiments must measure multiple demographic parameters to predict both population viability within existing ranges and the ability to establish new populations beyond current ranges.  Because many biotic and abiotic factors at multiple scales control species’ range limits, combining multi-factor climate manipulations across natural climate gradients is essential to establish underlying mechanisms.