The rate of change (RoC) of environmental drivers matters: biotic and abiotic components respond differently when faced with a fast or slow change in their environment. This phenomenon occurs across spatial scales and thus levels of ecological organization. We investigated the RoC of environmental drivers in the ecological literature and examined publication trends across ecological levels, including prevalent types of evidence and drivers. Research interest in environmental driver RoC has increased over time (particularly in the last decade), however, the amount of research and type of studies were not equally distributed across levels of organization and different subfields of ecology use temporal terminology (e.g. ‘abrupt’ and ‘gradual’) differently, making it difficult to compare studies. At the level of individual organisms, evidence indicates that responses and underlying mechanisms are different when environmental driver treatments are applied at different rates, thus we propose including a time dimension into reaction norms. There is much less experimental evidence at higher levels of ecological organization (i.e. population, community, ecosystem), although theoretical work at the population level indicates the importance of RoC for evolutionary responses. We identified very few studies at the community and ecosystem levels, although existing evidence indicates that driver RoC is important at these scales and potentially could be particularly important for some processes, such as community stability and cascade effects. We recommend shifting from a categorical (e.g. abrupt versus gradual) to a quantitative and continuous (e.g. °C/h) RoC framework and explicit reporting of RoC parameters, including magnitude, duration and start and end points to ease cross‐scale synthesis and alleviate ambiguity. Understanding how driver RoC affects individuals, populations, communities and ecosystems, and furthermore how these effects can feed back between levels is critical to making improved predictions about ecological responses to global change drivers. The application of a unified quantitative RoC framework for ecological studies investigating environmental driver RoC will both allow cross‐scale synthesis to be accomplished more easily and has the potential for the generation of novel hypotheses.

中文翻译：

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生态学中跨尺度的环境变化率

环境驱动因素的变化率 (RoC) 很重要：生物和非生物成分在面临环境快速或缓慢变化时的反应不同。这种现象发生在空间尺度上，从而发生在生态组织的层次上。我们调查了生态文献中环境驱动因素的 RoC，并检查了跨生态水平的出版趋势，包括普遍类型的证据和驱动因素。对环境驱动因素 RoC 的研究兴趣随着时间的推移而增加（特别是在过去十年中），但是，研究的数量和研究类型在组织层次上分布不均，生态学的不同子领域使用时间术语（例如“突然”和'gradual') 不同，因此很难比较研究。在个体有机体层面，证据表明，当环境驱动因素以不同的速率应用时，反应和潜在机制是不同的，因此我们建议将时间维度纳入反应规范。在更高层次的生态组织（即种群、群落、生态系统）上的实验证据要少得多，尽管种群水平的理论工作表明 RoC 对进化反应的重要性。我们在社区和生态系统层面确定了很少的研究，尽管现有证据表明驱动程序 RoC 在这些规模上很重要，并且可能对某些过程特别重要，例如社区稳定性和级联效应。我们建议从分类（例如突然与渐进）转变为定量和连续（例如 °C/h) RoC 框架和 RoC 参数的显式报告，包括幅度、持续时间以及起点和终点，以简化跨尺度综合并减轻歧义。了解驱动因素 RoC 如何影响个人、人口、社区和生态系统，以及这些影响如何在不同级别之间反馈，对于改进对全球变化驱动因素的生态响应的预测至关重要。将统一的定量 RoC 框架应用于调查环境驱动 RoC 的生态研究，既可以更轻松地完成跨尺度合成，也有可能产生新的假设。人口、社区和生态系统，以及这些影响如何在不同层次之间反馈，对于改进对全球变化驱动因素的生态响应的预测至关重要。将统一的定量 RoC 框架应用于调查环境驱动 RoC 的生态研究，既可以更轻松地完成跨尺度合成，也有可能产生新的假设。人口、社区和生态系统，以及这些影响如何在不同层次之间反馈，对于改进对全球变化驱动因素的生态响应的预测至关重要。将统一的定量 RoC 框架应用于调查环境驱动 RoC 的生态研究，既可以更轻松地完成跨尺度合成，也有可能产生新的假设。