| 1. |
- Staude, I. R., et al.
(author)
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Directional turnover towards larger-ranged plants over time and across habitats
- 2022
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In: Ecology Letters. - : Wiley. - 1461-023X .- 1461-0248. ; 25:2, s. 466-82
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Species turnover is ubiquitous. However, it remains unknown whether certain types of species are consistently gained or lost across different habitats. Here, we analysed the trajectories of 1827 plant species over time intervals of up to 78 years at 141 sites across mountain summits, forests, and lowland grasslands in Europe. We found, albeit with relatively small effect sizes, displacements of smaller- by larger-ranged species across habitats. Communities shifted in parallel towards more nutrient-demanding species, with species from nutrient-rich habitats having larger ranges. Because these species are typically strong competitors, declines of smaller-ranged species could reflect not only abiotic drivers of global change, but also biotic pressure from increased competition. The ubiquitous component of turnover based on species range size we found here may partially reconcile findings of no net loss in local diversity with global species loss, and link community-scale turnover to macroecological processes such as biotic homogenisation.
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| 2. |
- Pauli, H., et al.
(author)
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Recent Plant Diversity Changes on Europe's Mountain Summits
- 2012
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In: Science. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 0036-8075 .- 1095-9203. ; 336:6079, s. 353-355
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In mountainous regions, climate warming is expected to shift species' ranges to higher altitudes. Evidence for such shifts is still mostly from revisitations of historical sites. We present recent (2001 to 2008) changes in vascular plant species richness observed in a standardized monitoring network across Europe's major mountain ranges. Species have moved upslope on average. However, these shifts had opposite effects on the summit floras' species richness in boreal-temperate mountain regions (+3.9 species on average) and Mediterranean mountain regions (-1.4 species), probably because recent climatic trends have decreased the availability of water in the European south. Because Mediterranean mountains are particularly rich in endemic species, a continuation of these trends might shrink the European mountain flora, despite an average increase in summit species richness across the region.
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| 3. |
- Winkler, M., et al.
(author)
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The rich sides of mountain summits - a pan-European view on aspect preferences of alpine plants
- 2016
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In: Journal of Biogeography. - : Wiley. - 0305-0270. ; 43:11, s. 2261-2273
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Aim In the alpine life zone, plant diversity is strongly determined by local topography and microclimate. We assessed the extent to which aspect and its relatedness to temperature affect plant species diversity, and the colonization and disappearance of species on alpine summits on a pan-European scale. Methods Vascular plant species and their percentage cover were recorded in permanent plots in each cardinal direction on 123 summits in 32 regions across Europe. For a subset from 17 regions, resurvey data and 6-year soil temperature series were available. Differences in temperature sum and Shannon index as well as species richness, colonization and disappearance of species among cardinal directions were analysed using linear mixed-effects and generalised mixed-effects models, respectively. Results Temperature sums were higher in east-and south-facing aspects than in the north-facing ones, while the west-facing ones were intermediate; differences were smallest in northern Europe. The patterns of temperature sums among aspects were consistent among years. In temperate regions, thermal differences were reflected by plant diversity, whereas this relationship was weaker or absent on Mediterranean and boreal mountains. Colonization of species was positively related to temperature on Mediterranean and temperate mountains, whereas disappearance of species was not related to temperature. Main conclusions Thermal differences caused by solar radiation determine plant species diversity on temperate mountains. Advantages for plants on eastern slopes may result from the combined effects of a longer diurnal period of radiation due to convection cloud effects in the afternoon and the sheltered position against the prevailing westerly winds. In northern Europe, long summer days and low sun angles can even out differences among aspects. On Mediterranean summits, summer drought may limit species numbers on the warmer slopes. Warmer aspects support a higher number of colonization events. Hence, aspect can be a principal determinant of the pace of climate-induced migration processes.
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| 4. |
- Burli, S., et al.
(author)
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A common soil temperature threshold for the upper limit of alpine grasslands in European mountains
- 2021
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In: Alpine Botany. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1664-2201 .- 1664-221X. ; 131, s. 41-52
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- While climatic research about treeline has a long history, the climatic conditions corresponding to the upper limit of closed alpine grasslands remain poorly understood. Here, we propose a climatic definition for this limit, the 'grassline', in analogy to the treeline, which is based on the growing season length and the soil temperature. Eighty-seven mountain summits across ten European mountain ranges, covering three biomes (boreal, temperate, Mediterranean), were inventoried as part of the GLORIA project. Vascular plant cover was estimated visually in 326 plots of 1 x 1 m. Soil temperatures were measured in situ for 2-7 years, from which the length of the growing season and mean temperature were derived. The climatic conditions corresponding to 40% plant cover were defined as the thresholds for alpine grassland. Closed vegetation was present in locations with a mean growing season soil temperature warmer than 4.9 degrees C, or a minimal growing season length of 85 days, with the growing season defined as encompassing days with daily mean >= 1 degrees C. Hence, the upper limit of closed grasslands was associated with a mean soil temperature close to that previously observed at the treeline, and in accordance with physiological thresholds to growth in vascular plants. In contrast to trees, whose canopy temperature is coupled with air temperature, small-stature alpine plants benefit from the soil warmed by solar radiation and consequently, they can grow at higher elevations. Since substrate stability is necessary for grasslands to occur at their climatic limit, the grassline rarely appears as a distinct linear feature.
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| 5. |
- Gottfried, M., et al.
(author)
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Continent-wide response of mountain vegetation to climate change
- 2012
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In: Nature Climate Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1758-678X .- 1758-6798. ; 2:2, s. 111-115
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Climate impact studies have indicated ecological fingerprints of recent global warming across a wide range of habitats(1,2). Although these studies have shown responses from various local case studies, a coherent large-scale account on temperature-driven changes of biotic communities has been lacking(3,4). Here we use 867 vegetation samples above the treeline from 60 summit sites in all major European mountain systems to show that ongoing climate change gradually transforms mountain plant communities. We provide evidence that the more cold-adapted species decline and the more warm-adapted species increase, a process described here as thermophilization. At the scale of individual mountains this general trend may not be apparent, but at the larger, continental scale we observed a significantly higher abundance of thermophilic species in 2008, compared with 2001. Thermophilization of mountain plant communities mirrors the degree of recent warming and is more pronounced in areas where the temperature increase has been higher. In view of the projected climate change(5,6) the observed transformation suggests a progressive decline of cold mountain habitats and their biota.
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| 6. |
- Dullinger, S., et al.
(author)
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Weak and variable relationships between environmental severity and small-scale co-occurrence in alpine plant communities
- 2007
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In: Journal of Ecology. - : Wiley. - 0022-0477 .- 1365-2745. ; 95:6, s. 1284-1295
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- 1. The stress gradient hypothesis suggests a shift from predominant competition to facilitation along gradients of increasing environmental severity. This shift is proposed to cause parallel changes from prevailing spatial segregation to aggregation among the species within a community. 2. We used 904 1-m(2) plots, each subdivided into 100 10 x 10 cm, or 25 20 x 20 cm cells, respectively, from 67 European mountain summits grouped into 18 regional altitudinal transects, to test this hypothesized correlation between fine-scale spatial patterns and environmental severity. 3. The data were analysed by first calculating standardized differences between observed and simulated random co-occurrence patterns for each plot. These standardized effect sizes were correlated to indicators of environmental severity by means of linear mixed models. In a factorial design, separate analyses were made for four different indicators of environmental severity (the mean temperature of the coldest month, the temperature sum of the growing season, the altitude above tree line, and the percentage cover of vascular plants in the whole plot), four different species groups (all species, graminoids, herbs, and all growth forms considered as pseudospecies) and at the 10 x 10 cm and 20 x 20 cm grain sizes. 4. The hypothesized trends were generally weak and could only be detected by using the mean temperature of the coldest month or the percentage cover of vascular plants as the indicator of environmental severity. The spatial arrangement of the full species set proved more responsive to changes in severity than that of herbs or graminoids. The expected trends were more pronounced at a grain size of 10 x 10 cm than at 20 x 20 cm. 5. Synthesis. In European alpine plant communities the relationships between small-scale co-occurrence patterns of vascular plants and environmental severity are weak and variable. This variation indicates that shifts in net interactions with environmental severity may differ among indicators of severity, growth forms and scales. Recognition of such variation may help to resolve some of the current debate surrounding the stress gradient hypothesis.
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| 7. |
- Dengler, Jürgen, et al.
(author)
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Ecological Indicator Values for Europe (EIVE) 1.0
- 2023
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In: Vegetation Classification and Survey. - 2683-0671. ; 4, s. 7-29
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Aims: To develop a consistent ecological indicator value system for Europe for five of the main plant niche dimensions: soil moisture (M), soil nitrogen (N), soil reaction (R), light (L) and temperature (T). Study area: Europe (and closely adjacent regions). Methods: We identified 31 indicator value systems for vascular plants in Europe that contained assessments on at least one of the five aforementioned niche dimensions. We rescaled the indicator values of each dimension to a continuous scale, in which 0 represents the minimum and 10 the maximum value present in Europe. Taxon names were harmonised to the Euro+Med Plantbase. For each of the five dimensions, we calculated European values for niche position and niche width by combining the values from the individual EIV systems. Using T values as an example, we externally validated our European indicator values against the median of bioclimatic conditions for global occurrence data of the taxa. Results: In total, we derived European indicator values of niche position and niche width for 14,835 taxa (14,714 for M, 13,748 for N, 14,254 for R, 14,054 for L, 14,496 for T). Relating the obtained values for temperature niche position to the bioclimatic data of species yielded a higher correlation than any of the original EIV systems (r = 0.859). The database: The newly developed Ecological Indicator Values for Europe (EIVE) 1.0, together with all source systems, is available in a flexible, harmonised open access database. Conclusions: EIVE is the most comprehensive ecological indicator value system for European vascular plants to date. The uniform interval scales for niche position and niche width provide new possibilities for ecological and macroecological analyses of vegetation patterns. The developed workflow and documentation will facilitate the future release of updated and expanded versions of EIVE, which may for example include the addition of further taxonomic groups, additional niche dimensions, external validation or regionalisation.
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