Climate change is a pervasive threat to biodiversity. While range shifts are a known consequence of climate warming contributing to regional community change, less is known about how species’ positions shift within their climatic niches. Furthermore, whether the relative importance of different climatic variables prompting such shifts varies with changing climate remains unclear. Here we analysed four decades of data for 1,478 species of birds, mammals, butterflies, moths, plants and phytoplankton along a 1,200 km high latitudinal gradient. The relative importance of climatic drivers varied non-uniformly with progressing climate change. While species turnover among decades was limited, the relative position of species within their climatic niche shifted substantially. A greater proportion of species responded to climatic change at higher latitudes, where changes were stronger. These diverging climate imprints restructure a full biome, making it difficult to generalize biodiversity responses and raising concerns about ecosystem integrity in the face of accelerating climate change.

气候变化是对生物多样性的普遍威胁。虽然范围变化是气候变暖导致区域群落变化的一个已知结果，但人们对物种在其气候生态位中的位置如何变化知之甚少。此外，促使这种转变的不同气候变量的相对重要性是否随气候变化而变化仍不清楚。在这里，我们分析了 1,200 公里高纬度梯度上 1,478 种鸟类、哺乳动物、蝴蝶、飞蛾、植物和浮游植物的 40 年数据。气候驱动因素的相对重要性随着气候变化的进展而变化不一。虽然几十年间的物种更替有限，但物种在其气候生态位中的相对位置发生了巨大变化。更大比例的物种对高纬度地区的气候变化作出反应，变化更强的地方。这些不同的气候印记重构了一个完整的生物群落，使得生物多样性反应难以概括，并在气候变化加速的情况下引发了对生态系统完整性的担忧。