Ecological Responses to Extreme Climatic Events

Extreme climatic events—such as heatwaves, droughts, floods, storms and cold spells—are becoming more frequent and intense under climate change. These discrete disturbances can provoke immediate mortality, shifts in species distributions and alterations in ecosystem processes. At the population level, extreme events may drive rapid declines, local extirpations or demographic bottlenecks, with recovery often hampered by reduced reproductive output or habitat degradation. Community responses range from altered species composition and trophic reorganisation to the establishment of novel assemblages, as some taxa resist shocks through behavioural or physiological compensation, while others succumb. Ecosystem functions such as nutrient cycling, primary productivity and carbon storage can be disrupted by changes in vegetation structure or faunal activity, with legacy effects persisting for years or decades. Understanding the mechanisms of resistance (the ability to withstand change) and resilience (the capacity to recover) is vital for forecasting ecological trajectories. Integrating extreme event dynamics into conservation planning and adaptive management ensures that strategies account not only for long-term trends but also for episodic disturbances that can irreversibly transform landscapes and threaten biodiversity at multiple scales.

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Ecological Responses to Extreme Climatic Events publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in ecological responses to extreme climatic events across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Extreme climatic event: A rare or severe weather or climate occurrence (for example heatwave, flood or drought) that falls outside the normal range of variability and can cause abrupt ecological change.

Resistance: The capacity of an individual, population or community to withstand disturbance without substantial alteration to structure or function.

Resilience: The ability of an ecological system to recover to its original state after an extreme disturbance.

Ecological legacy: Persistent changes in habitat, community structure or resource availability resulting from a past extreme event, which influence subsequent ecological dynamics.

Adaptive capacity: The potential of species or ecosystems to adjust through behavioural, physiological or evolutionary mechanisms in response to climatic extremes.

References

1. Conservation implications of ecological responses to extreme weather and climate events. Diversity and Distributions (2018).
2. There’s a storm a‐coming: Ecological resilience and resistance to extreme weather events. Ecology and Evolution (2020).
3. The ecological consequences of the timing of extreme climate events. Ecology and Evolution (2023).
4. Multiple dimensions of extreme weather events and their impacts on biodiversity. Climatic Change (2023).