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Increases in functional diversity of mountain plant communities is mainly driven by species turnover under climate change

DOI zum Zitieren der Version auf EPub Bayreuth: https://doi.org/10.15495/EPub_UBT_00007294
URN to cite this document: urn:nbn:de:bvb:703-epub-7294-4

Title data

Schuchardt, Max A. ; Berauer, Bernd ; Le Duc, Anh ; Ingrisch, Johannes ; Niu, Yujie ; Bahn, Michael ; Jentsch, Anke:
Increases in functional diversity of mountain plant communities is mainly driven by species turnover under climate change.
In: Oikos. (2023) Issue 11 . - e09922.
ISSN 1600-0706
DOI der Verlagsversion: https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.09922

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Abstract

Warming in mountain regions is projected to be three times faster than the global average. Pronounced climate change will likely lead to species reshuffling in mountain plant communities and consequently change ecosystem resilience and functioning. Yet, little is known about the role of inter- versus intraspecific changes of plant traits and their consequences for functional richness and evenness of mountain plant communities under climate change. We performed a downslope translocation experiment of intact plant-soil mesocosms from an alpine pasture and a subalpine grassland in the Swiss and Austrian Alps to simulate an abrupt shift in climate and removal of dispersal barriers. Translocated plant communities experienced warmer and dryer climatic conditions. We found a considerable shift from resource conservative to resource acquisitive leaf-economy in the two climate change scenarios. However, shifts in leaf-economy were mainly attributable to species turnover, namely colonization by novel lowland species with trait expressions for a wider range of resource use. We also found an increase in vegetative height of the warmed and drought-affected alpine plant community, while trait plasticity to warming and drought was limited to few graminoid species of the subalpine plant community. Our results highlight the contrast between the strong competitive potential of novel lowland species in quickly occupying available niche space and native species' lack of both the intraspecific trait variability and the plant functional trait expressions needed to increase functional richness under warming and drought. This is particularly important for the trailing range of many mountain species (i.e. subalpine zone) where upward moving lowland species are becoming more abundant and abiotic climate stressors are likely to become more frequent in the near future. Our study emphasizes mountain plant communities' vulnerability to novel climates and biotic interactions under climate change and highlights graminoid species as potential winners of a warmer and dryer future.

Further data

Item Type: Article in a journal
Keywords: alpine grassland; functional diversity; invasion; species turnover; traitspace; translocation
DDC Subjects: 500 Science > 570 Life sciences, biology
Institutions of the University: Faculties > Faculty of Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences > Department of Earth Sciences > Professor Disturbance Ecology
Faculties > Faculty of Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences > Department of Earth Sciences > Professor Disturbance Ecology > Professor Disturbance Ecology - Univ.-Prof. Dr. Anke Jentsch
Faculties
Faculties > Faculty of Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences
Faculties > Faculty of Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences > Department of Earth Sciences
Language: English
Originates at UBT: Yes
URN: urn:nbn:de:bvb:703-epub-7294-4
Date Deposited: 09 Nov 2023 06:13
Last Modified: 09 Nov 2023 06:14
URI: https://epub.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/7294

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