DOI: 10.5061/dryad.3rd6f
title: Data from: Quantifying how short-term environmental variation leads to long-term demographic responses to climate change

description: 1. Climate change is expected to alter not only year-to-year variation in
 climate but also aspects of within-year variation, such as the length of
 the intervals between rainfall events and the duration of heat waves. Yet
 we still have a poor understanding of how intra-annual climate variability
 and individual weather events alter key vital rates (e.g. individual
 growth, reproduction and survival) that in part determine population
 dynamics. 2. Traditionally, ecologists have accounted for this variability
 across long time periods by attempting to correlate annual vital rates
 with measures of within-year variability (e.g., the coefficient of
 variation) to match the scale at which demographic data are collected. An
 alternative to this aggregate approach is to use within-season yet still
 relatively infrequent censuses in a probabilistic framework to determine
 the most likely way that vital rates respond to shorter-term variation in
 the environment, and how these short-term changes cumulatively lead to the
 observed yearly vital rates. 3. Here, I present an approach for inferring
 daily responses of vital rates to short-term weather variability, and
 apply it to understand how five species of summer annual plants in the
 Chihuahuan Desert will respond to climate change. 4. Vital rate models
 reveal that species differ in their responses to above- and below-average
 conditions, but generally fall into two life histories: 1) species that
 have fast growth on favorable days, but also experience higher mortality
 on less favorable days, and 2) species that have slower growth in the same
 conditions but lower mortality. Results show that the expected rainfall
 changes in the Chihuahuan desert (more late, cool season rainfall and less
 frequent, more intense rainfall events) could reduce growth and increase
 mortality of all summer annual plants. 5. Synthesis. My study shows that
 vital rates can change in response to short-term variability even when the
 total amount of rainfall and average temperature, common covariates in
 demographic models, remain constant. Accounting for changes in short-term
 environmental variation in climate change predictions will likely be
 important in systems with considerable environmental variation between
 censuses. The approach I present here can be widely applied to understand
 how short-term variability and individual weather events will alter
 organism responses to climate change.
description: Hydrosense_SoilMoistureSoil moisture measurements in 2012 & 2013 from rain-out shelters and control plots using Hydrosense soil moisture probe.Dryad_VWC_ALL.csvDecagon_SoilMoistureHourly soil moisture measurements in 2013 from five rain-out shelters and control plots using Decagon soil moisture probe.hoboall_2013.csvDemography Data 2012Plant demographic data collected in 2012 monsoon season.Dryad_Demo_Data_2012_2.csvDemography Data 2013Plant demographic data collected in 2013 monsoon season.Dryad_Demo_Data_2013_2.csvSpecies BiomassData for size-biomass relationships.SpBiomass_DRyad.csv