Consequently, predicting the response of organisms to projected environmental change is critical to conservation and management planning. Global anthropogenic climate change is a significant threat to the persistence of species and the biodiversity of ecosystems. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The role of plasticity in phenotypic adaptation to rapid environmental change’. We then expand the discussion from a single-species perspective to community-level responses and use the conceptual model to visualize and guide research into the important yet poorly understood processes of plasticity and adaptation. We use this conceptual model to help inform where within the geographical range each mechanism will probably operate most strongly and explore the supporting evidence in species. Owing to a lack of natural and empirical data on the influence of phenotypic adaptation on range shifts of marine species, we provide a general conceptual model for understanding population responses to climate change that incorporates plasticity and adaptation to environmental change in marine ecosystems. Climate change is leading to shifts in species geographical distributions, but populations are also probably adapting to environmental change at different rates across their range.
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