Climate Change Impacts on Mountain Biodiversity

Guisan, Antoine; Broennimann, Olivier; Buri, Aline; Cianfrani, Christina M.; D’Amen, Manuela; Cola, Valeria Di; Fernandes, Raphael Bragança Alves; Gray, Sarah M.; Mateo, Rubén G.; Pinto, Esteban; Pradervand, J.-N.; Scherrer, Daniel; Vittoz, Pascal; Däniken, Isaline Von; Yashiro, Erika

doi:10.2307/j.ctv8jnzw1.29

Cited by 29 publications

(23 citation statements)

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“…For that reason, it would be important to have forecasts of the future of soil bacteria upon changing environmental conditions [6][7][8][9]. However, they are still largely missing from future biodiversity assessments both at global (e.g., [10]) and regional levels (e.g., mountain ecosystems [11]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting spatial patterns of soil bacteria under current and future environmental conditions

et al. 2021

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Soil bacteria are largely missing from future biodiversity assessments hindering comprehensive forecasts of ecosystem changes. Soil bacterial communities are expected to be more strongly driven by pH and less by other edaphic and climatic factors. Thus, alkalinisation or acidification along with climate change may influence soil bacteria, with subsequent influences for example on nutrient cycling and vegetation. Future forecasts of soil bacteria are therefore needed. We applied species distribution modelling (SDM) to quantify the roles of environmental factors in governing spatial abundance distribution of soil bacterial OTUs and to predict how future changes in these factors may change bacterial communities in a temperate mountain area. Models indicated that factors related to soil (especially pH), climate and/or topography explain and predict part of the abundance distribution of most OTUs. This supports the expectations that microorganisms have specific environmental requirements (i.e., niches/envelopes) and that they should accordingly respond to environmental changes. Our predictions indicate a stronger role of pH over other predictors (e.g. climate) in governing distributions of bacteria, yet the predicted future changes in bacteria communities are smaller than their current variation across space. The extent of bacterial community change predictions varies as a function of elevation, but in general, deviations from neutral soil pH are expected to decrease abundances and diversity of bacteria. Our findings highlight the need to account for edaphic changes, along with climate changes, in future forecasts of soil bacteria.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting spatial patterns of soil bacteria under current and future environmental conditions

et al. 2021

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“…A high proportion of biodiversity hotspots are located in mountainous landscapes (Cadena et al., 2012; Grenyer et al., 2006; Guisan et al., 2019; Kier et al., 2009) and are commonly referred to as “cradles” or “engines” of biodiversity (Hoorn et al., 2018). Accordingly, many biodiversity hotspots have high spatial climate variability owing to the resulting elevational heterogeneity.…”

Section: The Role Of Climate Variation In the Accumulation Of Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Vulnerability of global biodiversity hotspots to climate change

Trew

Maclean

2021

Global Ecol. Biogeogr.

137

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Motivation More than half of Earth's species are contained in a mere 1.4% of its land area, but the climates of many of these biodiversity hotspots are projected to disappear as a consequence of anthropogenic climate change. There is growing recognition that spatio‐temporal patterns of climate in biodiversity hotspots have shaped biological diversity over a variety of historical time‐scales, yet these patterns are rarely taken into account in assessments of the vulnerability of biodiversity hotspots to future climate change. In our review, we synthesize the climatic processes that have led to the diversification of hotspots and interpret what this means in the context of anthropogenic climate change. We demonstrate the importance of mesoclimatic processes and fine‐scale topographical heterogeneity, in combination with climatic variability, in driving speciation processes and maintaining high levels of diversity. We outline why these features of hotspots are crucial to understanding the impacts of anthropogenic climate change and discuss how recent advances in predictive modelling enable vulnerability to be understood better. Location Global. Main conclusions We contend that many, although not all, biodiversity hotspots have climate and landscape characteristics that create fine‐scale spatial variability in climate, which potentially buffers them from climatic changes. Temporally, many hotspots have also experienced stable climates through evolutionary time, making them particularly vulnerable to future changes. Others have experienced more variable climates, which is likely to provide resilience to future changes. Thus, in order to identify risk for global biodiversity, we need to consider carefully the influence of spatio‐temporal variability in climate. However, most vulnerability assessments in biodiversity hotspots are still reliant on climate data with coarse spatial and temporal resolution. Higher‐resolution forecasts that account for spatio‐temporal variability in climate and account better for the physiological responses of organisms to this variability are much needed to inform future conservation strategies.

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“…Another prominent example is the observed upward shift of most vascular taxa at Chimborazo in Ecuador since Alexander von Humboldt's visit more than two centuries ago (Morueta‐Holme et al, 2015 ). An expected consequence of such uphill migrations of more competitive lowland species is that less competitive alpine species might locally become extinct on mountain summits (Alexander et al, 2018 ; Dullinger et al, 2012 ; Guisan et al, 2019 ; Rumpf et al, 2019 ). Such local extinctions were recently documented for birds (e.g., Freeman et al, 2018 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Think globally, measure locally: The MIREN standardized protocol for monitoring plant species distributions along elevation gradients

Haider

Lembrechts

McDougall

et al. 2022

Ecology and Evolution

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Climate change and other global change drivers threaten plant diversity in mountains worldwide. A widely documented response to such environmental modifications is for plant species to change their elevational ranges. Range shifts are often idiosyncratic and difficult to generalize, partly due to variation in sampling methods. There is thus a need for a standardized monitoring strategy that can be applied across mountain regions to assess distribution changes and community turnover of native and non‐native plant species over space and time. Here, we present a conceptually intuitive and standardized protocol developed by the Mountain Invasion Research Network (MIREN) to systematically quantify global patterns of native and non‐native species distributions along elevation gradients and shifts arising from interactive effects of climate change and human disturbance. Usually repeated every five years, surveys consist of 20 sample sites located at equal elevation increments along three replicate roads per sampling region. At each site, three plots extend from the side of a mountain road into surrounding natural vegetation. The protocol has been successfully used in 18 regions worldwide from 2007 to present. Analyses of one point in time already generated some salient results, and revealed region‐specific elevational patterns of native plant species richness, but a globally consistent elevational decline in non‐native species richness. Non‐native plants were also more abundant directly adjacent to road edges, suggesting that disturbed roadsides serve as a vector for invasions into mountains. From the upcoming analyses of time series, even more exciting results can be expected, especially about range shifts. Implementing the protocol in more mountain regions globally would help to generate a more complete picture of how global change alters species distributions. This would inform conservation policy in mountain ecosystems, where some conservation policies remain poorly implemented.

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Climate Change Impacts on Mountain Biodiversity

Cited by 29 publications

References 0 publications

Predicting spatial patterns of soil bacteria under current and future environmental conditions

Predicting spatial patterns of soil bacteria under current and future environmental conditions

Vulnerability of global biodiversity hotspots to climate change

Think globally, measure locally: The MIREN standardized protocol for monitoring plant species distributions along elevation gradients

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