Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Biological Conservation journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biocon Demographic responses to climate variation depend on spatial- and life history-diferentiation at multiple scales Matthew Tye a , Johan P. Dahlgren b,c , Dag-Inge Øien d , Asbjørn Moen d , Nina Sletvold a, ⁎ a Department of Plant Ecology and Evolution, Uppsala University, SE-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden b Department of Biology, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5230 Odense, Denmark c The SDU Interdisciplinary Centre on Population Dynamics, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5230 Odense, Denmark d Department of Natural History, NTNU University Museum, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Climate change Demography Life history diferences Orchids Population dynamics Spatial variation ABSTRACT Long-term demographic data are needed for detailed viability analyses of populations threatened by climate change, but the infeasibility of obtaining such data makes it urgent to assess whether demographic responses to climatic variation can be generalized across populations and species. We used 32 years of demographic data on four species of closely related orchids (genera Dactylorhiza and Gymnadenia), replicated in a coastal and an inland region in central Norway, to test how demographic responses to climate varied among geographical regions and species. We ft generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) to study climate efects on vital rates and included GLMMs as components in matrix models to examine climate efects on population dynamics. We found that, overall, vital rates and population growth rates of the eight populations responded independently to variation in both temperature and rainfall. Only probability of fowering showed expected regional difer- entiation in response to climate, despite notable regional climatic diferences. Other vital rate – climate re- lationships were structured by species or a combination of both region and species. The weak clustering of demographic responses to climate variation by species and region demonstrates that efects of climatic variation can strongly depend on variation in local habitat and life history, even among closely related populations oc- cupying similar niches. This highlights the difculty in transferring data from closely related and/or located populations for viability analyses and for models predicting range shifts, and a general need to account for among-population variation in demographic responses to develop successful conservation and management plans. 1. Introduction Linking populations' performance, in terms of demographic rates, to environmental variation is essential to understand and predict changes in population viability, abundance and geographical ranges (Ehrlén and Morris, 2015). However, although the number of studies that link en- vironmental factors to demographic change is growing, few have as- sessed such links in multiple populations using long-term data (Ehrlén et al., 2016). Thus, little is known about the generality of population responses to changes in environmental factors. This knowledge gap is particularly urgent to bridge regarding climatic factors, given that cli- mate change already caused species range shifts (Chen et al., 2011) and community changes (Devictor et al., 2012). Potential global impacts of climate change on population, community, and ecosystem dynamics have led to an increasing amount of studies at- tempting to generalize efects of climatic variation across large spatial and taxonomic scales (Parmesan, 2006; Bellard et al., 2012). Such large-scale approaches are necessary for developing cohesive management and miti- gation strategies, and predicting future range shifts and species distribu- tions. However, recent analyses of demographic data from hundreds of plant species point to low predictability both across species and geography (Coutts et al., 2016; Che-Castaldo et al., 2018). Population and community responses to environmental drivers such as climate can greatly depend on local habitat conditions, due to regional or more small-scale variation in abiotic factors (Nicolè et al., 2011; McLaughlin and Zavaleta, 2012), biotic interactions (Brodie et al., 2012), and/or management practices (Sletvold et al., 2013). Moreover, the specifc climatic factor associated with among- population diferentiation in demographic response can depend on spatial scale (Villellas et al., 2013). Studies that compare populations of the same species in diferent regions or habitats are thus needed to understand how efects of large-scale climatic variation interact with more small-scale ha- bitat heterogeneity. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2018.10.005 Received 20 April 2018; Received in revised form 14 September 2018; Accepted 2 October 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: nina.sletvold@ebc.uu.se (N. Sletvold). Biological Conservation 228 (2018) 62–69 0006-3207/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T