Historical Species Loss in the Alpine Zone of Camels Hump, Vermont

Zika, Peter F.

doi:10.2307/2996666

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This is consistent with the a priori expectation that cold‐adapted species such as Lathyrus vernus (http://sophy.u-3mrs.fr/pltcli/PC4069.html), which is more abundant in mountainous areas than in other areas in France (Rameau et al 1993), would suffer from higher temperatures at low elevations. This trend is consistent with previous studies indicating that upslope range contractions are ongoing for plant species at their lower or southern range margins (Zika 1993; Allen & Breshears 1998; Klanderud & Birks 2003; Lesica & McCune 2004; Gworek et al 2007; Pauli et al 2007; Lenoir et al 2009; Wilson & Nilsson 2009), and supports the idea that extinction processes at the rear margin are important in range shift dynamics (Hampe & Petit 2005). However, this trend was not significant when using the complete 2007 species lists.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Forest plant community changes during 1989-2007 in response to climate warming in the Jura Mountains (France and Switzerland)

Lenoir

Gégout

Dupouey³

et al. 2010

Journal of Vegetation Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Question: How strong are climate warming-driven changes within mid-elevation forest communities? Observations of plant community change within temperate mountain forest ecosystems in response to recent warming are scarce in comparison to highelevation alpine and nival ecosystems, perhaps reflecting the confounding influence of forest stand dynamics. Location: Jura Mountains (France and Switzerland). Methods: We assessed changes in plant community composition by surveying 154 Abies alba forest vegetation releve´s (550-1,350 m a.s.l.) in 1989 and 2007. Over this period, temperatures increased while precipitation did not change. Correspondence analysis (CA) and ecological indicator values were used to measure changes in plant community composition. Releve´s in even-and uneven-aged stands were analysed separately to determine the influence of forest stand dynamics. We also analysed changes in species distribution to detect shifts along the elevation gradient by focusing on the lowest, central and highest positions of lowland and mountain species altitudinal ranges. Results: We found significant shifts along the first CA axis, which reflected a change in plant community composition towards a greater frequency of lowland species. Analyses of ecological indicator values indicated increases in temperature and light availability in A. alba stands, particularly in evenaged stands. However, no major changes in overall species distribution were found. Conclusions: The community-level changes are consistent with effects of climate warming and local stand dynamics. Changes in species distribution were small in comparison to observed local temperature increases, perhaps reflecting dispersal limitation, phenotypic plasticity or microclimatic buffering by the tree canopy. Causality cannot rigorously be inferred from such a descriptive study; however, we suggest that recent warming is now driving plant community change in the climatically more moderate mid-elevation forest setting.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Forest plant community changes during 1989-2007 in response to climate warming in the Jura Mountains (France and Switzerland)

Lenoir

Gégout

Dupouey³

et al. 2010

Journal of Vegetation Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…To our knowledge, ours is the only study that rigorously documents such declines. Several high-elevation species have disappeared from remote and pristine sites in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern North America over the past century (Zika 1992(Zika , 1993. The reported changes cannot be conclusively linked to climatic warming, but they are consistent with model predictions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Decline of arctic‐alpine plants at the southern margin of their range following a decade of climatic warming

Lesica

McCune

2004

J Vegetation Science

123

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Question: Have recent increases in temperature caused a decline in arctic‐alpine plants at the southern margin of their range? Location: Above tree line; Glacier National Park, Montana, western USA. Methods: We monitored the abundance of seven arctic‐alpine vascular plants at or near the southern limits of their ranges at three sites in Glacier National Park, Montana from 1989 through 2002. In addition we recorded canopy cover of all plant species in sample plots once at the beginning and again at the end of the study. Results: Mean summer temperature during this period averaged 0.6 °C higher than the previous four decades. Results of ordinations with non‐metric multidimensional scaling suggested that vegetation moved toward the dry end of a moisture gradient at two sites during the course of the study. At the same time four of the peripheral arctic‐alpine indicator species demonstrated 31–65% declines in abundance, while none increased. Conclusions: We cannot rigorously infer causality from our descriptive study; however, changes in both indicator species and the vegetation matrix were consistent with predictions of climate‐induced extirpation of high‐elevation species and the northern migration of floras. Our results also suggest that species responded to the decade of warming individualistically with little relationship to growth form.

show abstract

“…for arthropods; Parmesan et al, 1999;Parmesan & Yohe, 2003;Hickling et al, 2005, and for amphibians;Pounds et al, 2006), but have rarely been documented for vascular plants. On a local scale, declines of arcticalpine plants at their southern margins of distribution were reported from the Rocky Mountains in Montana (Lesica & McCune, 2004), and alpine species disappeared from the narrow alpine zone in Vermont (Zika, 1993). In the European Alps, local extirpations of the alpine fen plant Swertia perennis, albeit related to landuse impacts, were found to be more likely at the lower peripheral distribution range (Lienert et al, 2002).…”

Section: Changes In Species Covermentioning

confidence: 97%

Signals of range expansions and contractions of vascular plants in the high Alps: observations (1994–2004) at the GLORIA^* master site Schrankogel, Tyrol, Austria

Pauli

Gottfried

Reiter

et al. 2006

Global Change Biology

411

350

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

High mountain ecosystems are defined by low temperatures and are therefore considered to react sensitively to climate warming. Responding to observed changes in plant species richness on high peaks of the European Alps, an extensive setup of 1 m Â 1 m permanent plots was established at the alpine-nival ecotone (between 2900 and 3450 m) on Mount Schrankogel, a GLORIA master site in the central Tyrolean Alps, Austria, in 1994. Recording was repeated in a representative selection of 362 quadrats in 2004. Ten years after the first recording, we observed an average change in vascular plant species richness from 11.4 to 12.7 species per plot, an increase of 11.8% (or of at least 10.6% at a 95% confidence level). The increase in species richness involved 23 species (about 43% of all taxa found at the ecotone), comprising both alpine and nival species and was pronouncedly higher in plots with subnival/nival vegetation than in plots with alpine grassland vegetation. Only three species showed a decrease in plot occupancy: one was an annual species, one was rare, and one a common nival plant that decreased in one part of the area but increased in the uppermost part. Species cover changed in relation to altitudinal preferences of species, showing significant declines of all subnival to nival plants, whereas alpine pioneer species increased in cover. Recent climate warming in the Alps, which has been twice as high as the global average, is considered to be the primary driver of the observed differential changes in species cover. Our results indicate an ongoing range contraction of subnival to nival species at their rear (i.e. lower) edge and a concurrent expansion of alpine pioneer species at their leading edge. Although this was expected from predictive distribution models and different temperature-related habitat preferences of alpine and nival species, we provide first evidence on -most likely -warming-induced species declines in the high European Alps. The projected acceleration of climate warming raises concerns that this phenomenon could become the major threat to biodiversity in high mountains.

show abstract

Historical Species Loss in the Alpine Zone of Camels Hump, Vermont

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Forest plant community changes during 1989-2007 in response to climate warming in the Jura Mountains (France and Switzerland)

Forest plant community changes during 1989-2007 in response to climate warming in the Jura Mountains (France and Switzerland)

Decline of arctic‐alpine plants at the southern margin of their range following a decade of climatic warming

Signals of range expansions and contractions of vascular plants in the high Alps: observations (1994–2004) at the GLORIA^* master site Schrankogel, Tyrol, Austria

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Historical Species Loss in the Alpine Zone of Camels Hump, Vermont

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Forest plant community changes during 1989-2007 in response to climate warming in the Jura Mountains (France and Switzerland)

Forest plant community changes during 1989-2007 in response to climate warming in the Jura Mountains (France and Switzerland)

Decline of arctic‐alpine plants at the southern margin of their range following a decade of climatic warming

Signals of range expansions and contractions of vascular plants in the high Alps: observations (1994–2004) at the GLORIA* master site Schrankogel, Tyrol, Austria

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Signals of range expansions and contractions of vascular plants in the high Alps: observations (1994–2004) at the GLORIA^* master site Schrankogel, Tyrol, Austria