Early Evidence of Shifts in Alpine Summit Vegetation: A Case Study From Kashmir Himalaya

Abstract

Under the contemporary climate change, the Himalaya is reported to be warming at a much higher rate than the global average. However, little is known about the alpine vegetation responses to recent climate change in the rapidly warming Himalaya. Here we studied vegetation dynamics on alpine summits in Kashmir Himalaya in relation to in situ measured microclimate. The summits, representing an elevation gradient from treeline to nival zone (3530-3740 m), were first surveyed in 2014 and then re-surveyed in 2018. The initial survey showed that the species richness, vegetation cover and soil temperature decreased with increasing elevation. Species richness and soil temperature differed significantly among slopes, with east and south slopes showing higher values than north and west slopes. The re-survey showed that species richness increased on the lower three summits but decreased on the highest summit (nival zone) and also revealed a substantial increase in the cover of dominant shrubs, graminoids, and forbs. The nestedness-resultant dissimilarity, rather than species turnover, contributed more to the magnitude of β-diversity among the summits. High temporal species turnover was found on south and east aspects, while high nestedness was recorded along north and west aspects. Thermophilization was more pronounced on the lower two summits and along the northern aspects. Our study provides crucial scientific data on climate change impacts on the alpine vegetation of Kashmir Himalaya. This information will fill global knowledge gaps from the developing world.

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“…These Ladakh experimental and monitoring studies highlight the complexity of predicting alpine plant responses to climate change in the Himalaya (cf. He et al 2019, Anderson et al 2020, Hamid et al 2020, Wang et al 2021. Onipchenko et al (2009) report the discovery of specialised 'snow-roots' on Corydalis conorhiza, a snow-bed plant growing at 2800 m in the northern Caucasus (Russia).…”

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“…These alpine plateaus represent a unique ecosystem not only in terms of possessing a diverse flora of medicinal importance but also for offering micro ‐ refugia for species migrating to higher elevations on account of recent climate warming. Climate warming in alpine regions is predicted to increase upper distributional limits of plant species, vegetation cover and also facilitate lower warm ‐ adapted plant species to invade higher elevations, which were previously outside of their tolerance limits (Gottfried et al, 2012; Hamid et al, 2020; Steinbauer et al, 2018). In fact, soil properties at higher elevations will likely determine the rate of upward plant movement.…”