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- Lembrechts, Jonas J., et al.
(author)
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Global maps of soil temperature
- 2022
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In: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 28:9, s. 3110-3144
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km2 resolution for 0–5 and 5–15cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km2 pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world's major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean=3.0±2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6±2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (−0.7±2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications.
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- Dahlberg, C. Johan, 1978-, et al.
(author)
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Performance of Forest Bryophytes with Different Geographical Distributions Transplanted across a Topographically Heterogeneous Landscape
- 2014
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In: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 9:11
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Most species distribution models assume a close link between climatic conditions and species distributions. Yet, we know little about the link between species’ geographical distributions and the sensitivity of performance to local environmental factors. We studied the performance of three bryophyte species transplanted at south- and north-facing slopes in a boreal forest landscape in Sweden. At the same sites, we measured both air and ground temperature. We hypothesized that the two southerly distributed species Eurhynchium angustirete and Herzogiella seligeri perform better on south-facing slopes and in warm conditions, and that the northerly distributed species Barbilophozia lycopodioides perform better on north-facing slopes and in relatively cool conditions. The northern, but not the two southern species, showed the predicted relationship with slope aspect. However, the performance of one of the two southern species was still enhanced by warm temperatures. An important reason for the inconsistent results can be that microclimatic gradients across landscapes are complex and influenced by many climate-forcing factors. Therefore, comparing only north- and south-facing slopes might not capture the complexity of microclimatic gradients. Population growth rates and potential distributions are the integrated results of all vital rates. Still, the study of selected vital rates constitutes an important first step to understand the relationship between population growth rates and geographical distributions and is essential to better predict how climate change influences species distributions.
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- Dahlberg, C. Johan, 1978-, et al.
(author)
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Plant landscape climatic optima correlate with their continental range optima
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Aim Factors determining species’ distributions at smaller scales may inform us about larger scale distributions, and vice versa. We predicted that landscape and continental climatic optima for plants are positively correlated, and that species that have their optima outside a given focal landscape will cluster at the warmest or coldest landscape patches. Also, we predicted that the correlations of temperature optima are stronger for vascular plants than for bryophytes, since bryophytes may be regulated also by air moisture.LocationÅngermanland, Sweden (landscape scale); Europe (continental scale).MethodsWe derived landscape optima from fine-grained temperature models (50 m) and species inventories, and continental optima from MaxEnt niche modelling based on GBIF occurrences and Worldclim temperatures (c. 1000 m), for 96 bryophytes and 50 vascular plants. Optima were derived for growing degree days, and maximum and minimum temperature.ResultsThe landscape and continental optima of all species were positively correlated for growing degree days and maximum temperature (r = 0.19 and r = 0.44), but not for minimum temperature (r = -0.010). Species with their continental optima outside the focal landscape did not clearly cluster in the most extreme parts of the landscape. For vascular plants the correlation was positive for both growing degree days and maximum temperature (r = 0.50 and r = 0.64), but for bryophytes only for maximum temperature (r = 0.34).Main conclusionsThe optima correlations for maximum temperature and growing degree days indicate that we can infer large scale distribution patterns of plants from their local scale distributions, and suggest in which environments species occur if we only know their continental scale optima. The lack of clustering of southern and northern species limits the possibility for conservation actions targeting microrefugia. Lastly, the correlations indicate that the distributions of vascular plants were more influenced by temperature than bryophytes.
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4. |
- Dahlberg, C. Johan, 1978-, et al.
(author)
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Population dynamics of moss transplants across microclimatic gradients
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In order to determine the response of a species to climatic change it is important to study how climatic factors influence its vital rates and population growth rate across climatic gradients. We investigated how microclimate influence the population dynamics of transplants from northern and more southern populations of the forest bryophyte Hylocomiastrum umbratum. We predicted that its population growth rate is favored by moist microclimates with colder maximum temperatures, longer snow cover duration and less evaporation, and that annual shoots (segments) will be shorter under drier conditions. We also predicted that northern populations will have higher population growth rate and larger segments than southern populations when transplanted to the northern range. We placed transplants from three northern and three southern populations of H. umbratum at 30 forested sites in central Sweden differing in microclimate. We marked and followed the growth of individual shoots during two years, and calculated population growth rates and stable stage distributions of segment size classes using transition matrix models for northern and southern transplants, respectively, at each locality. Population growth rate was lower and shorter segments developed at sites with higher evaporation, corresponding to our hypothesis. There were no significant difference in population growth rate and stable stage segment length between southern and northern populations. Higher evaporation during the summer result in lower population growth rates of H. umbratum by affecting vital rates, in terms of less segment growth. Both climate change and forestry may alter evaporation conditions across the landscape and, thus, the future distribution of the species.
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- Dahlberg, C. Johan, 1978-
(author)
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The role of microclimate for the performance and distribution of forest plants
- 2016
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Microclimatic gradients may have large influence on individual vital rates and population growth rates of species, and limit their distributions. Therefore, I focused on the influence of microclimate on individual performance and distribution of species. Further, I examined differences in how microclimate affect species with contrasting distributions or different ecophysiological traits, and populations within species. More specifically, I investigated the performance of northern and southern distributed forest bryophytes that were transplanted across microclimatic gradients, and the timing of vegetative and reproductive development among northern, marginal and more southern populations of a forest herb in a common garden. Also, I compared the landscape and continental distributions across forest bryophytes and vascular plants and, thus, their distribution limiting factors at different spatial scales. Lastly, I examined the population dynamics across microclimatic gradients of transplants from northern and southern populations of a forest moss. The effects of microclimatic conditions on performance differed among bryophytes with contrasting distributions. There were no clear differences between northern and southern populations in the timing of development of a forest herb or in the population dynamics of a moss. However, within each region there was a differentiation of the forest herb populations, related to variation in local climatic conditions and in the south also to proportion of deciduous trees. The continental distributions of species were reflected in their landscape distributions and vice versa, in terms of their occurrence optima for climatic variables. The variation in landscape climatic optima was, however, larger than predicted, which limit the precision for predictions of microrefugia. Probably, the distributions of vascular plants were more affected by temperature than the distributions of bryophytes. Bryophytes are sensitive to moisture conditions, which was demonstrated by a correlation between evaporation and the population growth rate of a forest moss. We might be able to predict species’ landscape scale distributions by linking microclimatic conditions to their population growth rates, via their vital rates, and infer larger scale distribution patterns.
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6. |
- Lembrechts, Jonas J., et al.
(author)
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SoilTemp : A global database of near-surface temperature
- 2020
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In: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 26:11, s. 6616-6629
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)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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7. |
- Dahlberg, C. Johan, 1978-, et al.
(author)
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Population differentiation in timing of development in a forest herb associated with local climate and canopy closure
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Our knowledge of how plant seasonal development is related to local versus larger-scale environmental variation is limited. We investigated differentiation in the timing of vegetative and reproductive development among populations of the forest herb Lathyrus vernus over different spatial scales. We predicted earlier development and shorter development time for populations from a colder, northern region compared to populations from a warmer, southern region. Also, we predicted earlier and shorter development within regions to be associated with colder temperatures and higher proportions of deciduous trees at their sites of origin. Lastly, we predicted that earlier flowering is strongly correlated with earlier start of development. To examine these predictions, we conducted a common garden study, and compared the development of 10 northern and 10 southern Swedish L. vernus populations. Start of development, development time and start of flowering did not differ between populations from the two regions in contrast to our prediction. Within the southern region, start of flowering was earlier in populations from colder sites, while start of development was earlier with colder temperatures within the northern region. Start of flowering occurred earlier in southern populations from sites with higher proportion of deciduous trees. Thus, the prediction for the timing of development within regions was partly confirmed. However, vegetative and reproductive development was not simultaneously influenced by temperature and proportion of deciduous trees within regions, possibly due to the negative correlation between vegetative growth and development time. This implies that earlier start of development or shorter development time not necessarily correspond to earlier start of flowering or vice versa. Overall, the results suggest that smaller scale effects within region, such as temperature and interspecific competition for light, was more important for the timing of development than the larger scale gradients between regions. Lastly, the population differentiation across gradients of temperature and proportion of deciduous trees implies that populations may adapt to long-term changes in light or climatic conditions, and differ in their short-term response to climate change.
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