Microclimates slow and alter the direction of climate velocities in tropical forests
2025-11-27
Climate velocity—the speed and direction species must move to track climate change—is often estimated without accounting for vegetation-driven microclimatic variation. Using mechanistic microclimate models parameterized with three-dimensional maps of topography and vegetation structure, here we show that microclimate heterogeneity reduces the magnitude and alters the direction of climate velocity for maximum and minimum temperatures. For understory-dwelling organisms, the magnitude of maximum temperature velocity was halved and generally oriented towards areas with dense vegetation. For canopy-dwelling organisms, the magnitude of maximum temperature velocity was nearly zero, with vectors oriented vertically downward. These results demonstrate that vegetation complexity produces localized microrefugia, enabling short-term persistence of species under warming conditions. Our findings emphasize the need to integrate fine-scale habitat heterogeneity into predictions of climate resilience and highlight the value of structurally complex forests in providing microclimatic refugia.