Assessing potential impacts of climatic change on subalpine forests on the eastern Tibetan Plateau

Wang, Xiaodan; Cheng, Guoping; Zhong, Xiaohui

doi:10.1007/s10584-010-0008-2

Cited by 22 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…For R. webbianum, range expansion was predicted in western parts of Pakistan. These results can be related with the predictions for the habitat change of different Himalayan plant species under climate change scenarios [97][98][99][100][101] . Model-based projections of various plant species predicted by different researchers [102][103][104] under RCP 8.5 for 2070 also reported significant contraction of potential suitable habitat in response to future climate change scenarios.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

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Predicting habitat suitability and niche dynamics of Dactylorhiza hatagirea and Rheum webbianum in the Himalaya under projected climate change

Wani

Khan

Verma

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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In the era of anthropocene, global warming tends to alter the distribution range of the plant species. Highly fragile to such changes are the species that are endemic, inhabit higher elevations and show narrow distribution ranges. Predicting and plotting the appropriate suitable habitats and keeping knowledge of how climate change will affect future distribution become imperative for designing effective conservation strategies. In the current study we have used BIOMOD ensemble forecasting to study the current and predict the future potential distribution of Dactylorhiza hatagirea and Rheum webbianum and describe their niche dynamics in Himalayan biodiversity hotspots under climate change scenarios using ecospat R package. Results reveal sufficient internal evaluation metrics with area under curve (AUC) and true skill statistic (TSS) values greater than 0.8 i.e. 0.93 and 0.98 and 0.82 and 0.90 for D. hatageria and R. webbianum respectively, which signifies robustness of the model. Among different bioclimatic variables, bio_1, bio_3, bio_8, bio_14 and bio_15 were the most influential, showing greater impact on the potential distribution of these plant species. Range change analysis showed that both the studied species will show significant contraction of their suitable habitats under future climatic scenarios. Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 for the year 2070, indicate that the suitable habitats could be reduced by about 51.41% and 70.57% for D. hatagirea and R. webbianum respectively. The results of the niche comparisons between the current and future climatic scenarios showed moderate level of niche overlap for all the pairs with D. hatageria showing 61% overlap for current vs. RCP4.5 2050 and R. webbianum reflects 68% overlap for current vs. RCP4.5 2050. Furthermore, the PCA analysis revealed that climatic conditions for both the species vary significantly between current and future scenarios. The similarity and equivalence test showed that the niche between present and future climate change scenarios is comparable but not identical. From the current study we concluded that the influence of climate change on the habitat distribution of these plant species in the Himalayan biodiversity hotspots can be considered very severe. Drastic reduction in overall habitat suitability poses a high risk of species extinction and thereby threatens to alter the functions and services of these fragile ecosystems. Present results can be used by conservationists for mitigating the biodiversity decline and exploring undocumented populations on one hand and by policymakers in implementing the policy of conservation of species by launching species recovery programmes in future on the other. The outcomes of this study can contribute substantially to understand the consequences of climate change in the Himalayan biodiversity hotspots.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

“…The species is distributed to China, India, Pakistan and Nepal. Roots as well as leaves are medicinally important and find use in both traditional and modern-day systems of medicine 98 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting habitat suitability and niche dynamics of Dactylorhiza hatagirea and Rheum webbianum in the Himalaya under projected climate change

Wani

Khan

Verma

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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“…The five IAPS investigated in this paper are of tropical origin, not temperate or alpine origin, and the growth form and physiological and morphological characteristics totally differ compared to plants from high elevations; therefore, we could not expect a massive northward and high elevation expansion with a future warming climate in the region, as suggested for cold-adapted plant species in other studies (Song et al 2004;Benito et al 2011;Xiaodan et al 2011;Lamsal et al 2017). Human activities, such as agriculture and urban development, might move upward in the mountain region under current global warming (Price 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%

Invasive alien plant species dynamics in the Himalayan region under climate change

Lamsal

Kumar

Aryal

et al. 2018

Ambio

135

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Climate change will impact the dynamics of invasive alien plant species (IAPS). However, the ability of IAPS under changing climate to invade mountain ecosystems, particularly the Himalayan region, is less known. This study investigates the current and future habitat of five IAPS of the Himalayan region using MaxEnt and two representative concentration pathways (RCPs). Two invasive species, Ageratum conyzoides and Parthenium hysterophorus, will lose overall suitable area by 2070, while Ageratina adenophora, Chromolaena odorata and Lantana camara will gain suitable areas and all of them will retain most of the current habitat as stable. The southern Himalayan foothills will mostly conserve species ecological niches, while suitability of all the five species will decrease with increasing elevation. Such invasion dynamics in the Himalayan region could have impacts on numerous ecosystems and their biota, ecosystem services and human well-being. Trans-boundary response strategies suitable to the local context of the region could buffer some of the likely invasion impacts.

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“…Such patterns may indicate the primary drivers of subalpine tree population dynamics operate at sub-regional scales, likely responding to local-scale variation in climate, topoedaphic conditions, and disturbance history 37 . Previous studies have indicated that subalpine tree species are among the most vulnerable to future changes in climate and forest disturbance regimes [38][39][40] . Our results indicate this heightened vulnerability is already manifesting across the western US, serving as an early warning of potentially widespread, rapid decline of subalpine forests in other regions of the temperate biome.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Over half of western United States' most abundant tree species in decline

et al. 2021

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Changing forest disturbance regimes and climate are driving accelerated tree mortality across temperate forests. However, it remains unknown if elevated mortality has induced decline of tree populations and the ecological, economic, and social benefits they provide. Here, we develop a standardized forest demographic index and use it to quantify trends in tree population dynamics over the last two decades in the western United States. The rate and pattern of change we observe across species and tree size-distributions is alarming and often undesirable. We observe significant population decline in a majority of species examined, show decline was particularly severe, albeit size-dependent, among subalpine tree species, and provide evidence of widespread shifts in the size-structure of montane forests. Our findings offer a stark warning of changing forest composition and structure across the western US, and suggest that sustained anthropogenic and natural stress will likely result in broad-scale transformation of temperate forests globally.

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Assessing potential impacts of climatic change on subalpine forests on the eastern Tibetan Plateau

Cited by 22 publications

References 38 publications

Predicting habitat suitability and niche dynamics of Dactylorhiza hatagirea and Rheum webbianum in the Himalaya under projected climate change

Predicting habitat suitability and niche dynamics of Dactylorhiza hatagirea and Rheum webbianum in the Himalaya under projected climate change

Invasive alien plant species dynamics in the Himalayan region under climate change

Over half of western United States' most abundant tree species in decline

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