A Mechanistic Niche Model for Measuring Species' Distributional Responses to Seasonal Temperature Gradients.

The article focuses on measurement of species' distributional responses to seasonal temperature gradients through a mechanistic niche model. Niche theory helps to understand climate change and response of species towards it geographically. The niche is defined in a biological community, physiology and geographic space. It was observed that the distribution of species were controlled by factors like resource availability, relative humidity, physical barriers to dispersal and biotic interactions. In this study, lethal physiological temperatures were used to parameterize the model for bird species in North and South America. The results showed that broad thermal tolerances are possessed by most bird species.