Achieving general predictions about community-level and ecosystem-level consequences of climate change will require developing mechanistic or process-based models that link species responses to environmental drivers that are themselves responsive to dominant features of climate change. Modifications in stream hydrologic and thermal regimes can be expected to induce both direct (e.g., physiological) and indirect (e.g., habitat-mediated) ecological responses. The magnitude of ecological response is expected to reflect the degree to which climate-modified hydrologic and thermal conditions deviate from the natural (historical) range of variation in environmental drivers. The details of such deviations will differ within and among bioclimatic regions. Further, the geomorphic landscape (stream channel and network structure that determine catchment refugia and regional connectivity) will provide an important context for expected translation of modified hydrologic and thermal forcing factors on ecological response. In this talk I will present a conceptual habitat template framework that hierarchically stratifies environmental variation in hydrologic regimes, thermal regimes and geomorphic landscapes within and across bioclimatic regions. When combined with scenarios of projected changes in streamflow and thermal regimes, this framework can guide model development for hypothesizing a range of spatially-distributed ecological responses within and among bioclimatic zones that differ in vulnerability to climate change.