| 1. |
- Lembrechts, Jonas J., et al.
(författare)
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SoilTemp : A global database of near-surface temperature
- 2020
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 26:11, s. 6616-6629
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Current analyses and predictions of spatially explicit patterns and processes in ecology most often rely on climate data interpolated from standardized weather stations. This interpolated climate data represents long-term average thermal conditions at coarse spatial resolutions only. Hence, many climate-forcing factors that operate at fine spatiotemporal resolutions are overlooked. This is particularly important in relation to effects of observation height (e.g. vegetation, snow and soil characteristics) and in habitats varying in their exposure to radiation, moisture and wind (e.g. topography, radiative forcing or cold-air pooling). Since organisms living close to the ground relate more strongly to these microclimatic conditions than to free-air temperatures, microclimatic ground and near-surface data are needed to provide realistic forecasts of the fate of such organisms under anthropogenic climate change, as well as of the functioning of the ecosystems they live in. To fill this critical gap, we highlight a call for temperature time series submissions to SoilTemp, a geospatial database initiative compiling soil and near-surface temperature data from all over the world. Currently, this database contains time series from 7,538 temperature sensors from 51 countries across all key biomes. The database will pave the way toward an improved global understanding of microclimate and bridge the gap between the available climate data and the climate at fine spatiotemporal resolutions relevant to most organisms and ecosystem processes.
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| 2. |
- Kikvidze, Zaal, et al.
(författare)
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The effects of foundation species on community assembly: a global study on alpine cushion plant communities
- 2015
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Ingår i: Ecology. - : Ecological Society of America. - 0012-9658. ; 96:8, s. 2064-2069
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Foundation species can change plant community structure by modulating important ecological processes such as community assembly, yet this topic is poorly understood. In alpine systems, cushion plants commonly act as foundation species by ameliorating local conditions. Here, we analyze diversity patterns of species' assembly within cushions and in adjacent surrounding open substrates (83 sites across five continents) calculating floristic dissimilarity between replicate plots, and using linear models to analyze relationships between microhabitats and species diversity. Floristic dissimilarity did not change across biogeographic regions, but was consistently lower in the cushions than in the open microhabitat. Cushion plants appear to enable recruitment of many relatively stress-intolerant species that otherwise would not establish in these communities, yet the niche space constructed by cushion plants supports a more homogeneous composition of species than the niche space beyond the cushion's influence. As a result, cushion plants support higher α-diversity and a larger species pool, but harbor assemblies with lower ?-diversity than open microhabitats. We conclude that habitats with and without dominant foundation species can strongly differ in the processes that drive species recruitment, and thus the relationship between local and regional species diversity.
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| 3. |
- Cavieres, Lohengrin A., et al.
(författare)
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Facilitative plant interactions and climate simultaneously drive alpine plant diversity
- 2014
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Ingår i: Ecology Letters. - : Wiley. - 1461-0248 .- 1461-023X. ; 17:2, s. 193-202
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Interactions among species determine local-scale diversity, but local interactions are thought to have minor effects at larger scales. However, quantitative comparisons of the importance of biotic interactions relative to other drivers are rarely made at larger scales. Using a data set spanning 78 sites and five continents, we assessed the relative importance of biotic interactions and climate in determining plant diversity in alpine ecosystems dominated by nurse-plant cushion species. Climate variables related with water balance showed the highest correlation with richness at the global scale. Strikingly, although the effect of cushion species on diversity was lower than that of climate, its contribution was still substantial. In particular, cushion species enhanced species richness more in systems with inherently impoverished local diversity. Nurse species appear to act as a ‘safety net’ sustaining diversity under harsh conditions, demonstrating that climate and species interactions should be integrated when predicting future biodiversity effects of climate change.
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