Abstract:Understanding the effects of increasing temperature is central in explaining the effects of climate change on vegetation. Here, we investigate how warming affects vegetation regeneration and root biomass and if there is an interactive effect of warming with other environmental variables. We also examine if geothermal warming effects on vegetation regeneration and root biomass can be used in climate change experiments. Monitoring plots were arranged in a grid across the study area to cover a range of soil tempe… Show more
“…Earlier studies have shown that temperature is a major factor altering plant phenotypic traits as it influences growth as well as the timing of plant development (Cleland, Chuine, Menzel, Mooney, & Schwartz, ; Hatfield & Prueger, ). A negative correlation between plant biomass or plant height and temperature, as found in our study, has already been shown in Silene noctiflora (Qaderi & Reid, ) and Erigeron speciosus (De Valpine & Harte, ) and was also observed for vegetation cover in geothermal areas (Nishar et al., ). Reduced plant height and smaller leaves result in a smaller transpiration surface and thus may help the plant to withstand the increased drought stress at higher temperatures.…”
The adaptation of plants to future climatic conditions is crucial for their survival. Not surprisingly, phenotypic responses to climate change have already been observed in many plant populations. These responses may be due to evolutionary adaptive changes or phenotypic plasticity. Especially plant species with a wide geographic range are either expected to show genetic differentiation in response to differing climate conditions or to have a high phenotypic plasticity.
We investigated phenotypic responses and plasticity as an estimate of the adaptive potential in the widespread species Silene vulgaris. In a greenhouse experiment, 25 European populations covering a geographic range from the Canary Islands to Sweden were exposed to three experimental precipitation and two temperature regimes mimicking a possible climate‐change scenario for central Europe. We hypothesized that southern populations have a better performance under high temperature and drought conditions, as they are already adapted to a comparable environment.
We found that our treatments significantly influenced the plants, but did not reveal a latitudinal difference in response to climate treatments for most plant traits. Only flower number showed a stronger plasticity in northern European populations (e.g. Swedish populations) where numbers decreased more drastically with increased temperature and decreased precipitation treatment.
Synthesis. The significant treatment response in Silene vulgaris, independent of population origin – except for the number of flowers produced – suggests a high degree of universal phenotypic plasticity in this widely distributed species. This reflects the likely adaptation strategy of the species and forms the basis for a successful survival strategy during upcoming climatic changes. However, as flower number, a strongly fitness‐related trait, decreased more strongly in northern populations under a climate‐change scenario, there might be limits to adaptation even in this widespread, plastic species.
“…Earlier studies have shown that temperature is a major factor altering plant phenotypic traits as it influences growth as well as the timing of plant development (Cleland, Chuine, Menzel, Mooney, & Schwartz, ; Hatfield & Prueger, ). A negative correlation between plant biomass or plant height and temperature, as found in our study, has already been shown in Silene noctiflora (Qaderi & Reid, ) and Erigeron speciosus (De Valpine & Harte, ) and was also observed for vegetation cover in geothermal areas (Nishar et al., ). Reduced plant height and smaller leaves result in a smaller transpiration surface and thus may help the plant to withstand the increased drought stress at higher temperatures.…”
The adaptation of plants to future climatic conditions is crucial for their survival. Not surprisingly, phenotypic responses to climate change have already been observed in many plant populations. These responses may be due to evolutionary adaptive changes or phenotypic plasticity. Especially plant species with a wide geographic range are either expected to show genetic differentiation in response to differing climate conditions or to have a high phenotypic plasticity.
We investigated phenotypic responses and plasticity as an estimate of the adaptive potential in the widespread species Silene vulgaris. In a greenhouse experiment, 25 European populations covering a geographic range from the Canary Islands to Sweden were exposed to three experimental precipitation and two temperature regimes mimicking a possible climate‐change scenario for central Europe. We hypothesized that southern populations have a better performance under high temperature and drought conditions, as they are already adapted to a comparable environment.
We found that our treatments significantly influenced the plants, but did not reveal a latitudinal difference in response to climate treatments for most plant traits. Only flower number showed a stronger plasticity in northern European populations (e.g. Swedish populations) where numbers decreased more drastically with increased temperature and decreased precipitation treatment.
Synthesis. The significant treatment response in Silene vulgaris, independent of population origin – except for the number of flowers produced – suggests a high degree of universal phenotypic plasticity in this widely distributed species. This reflects the likely adaptation strategy of the species and forms the basis for a successful survival strategy during upcoming climatic changes. However, as flower number, a strongly fitness‐related trait, decreased more strongly in northern populations under a climate‐change scenario, there might be limits to adaptation even in this widespread, plastic species.
“…Resource usage by the consumer community thus seemingly kept pace with resource provisioning, with no overall change in percentage cover of the vegetation community as soil temperature increased. Faster rates of vegetation regeneration at higher temperatures (Nishar et al., ) may play a key role in meeting the higher metabolic demands of herbivores and subsequently their predators. Arctic and subarctic organisms are also predicted to exhibit relatively small absolute shifts in metabolic rate compared to those at lower latitudes due to their cooler baseline temperatures and the exponential relationship between metabolism and temperature (Dillon, Wang, & Huey, ).…”
Abstract1. Global warming is predicted to significantly alter species physiology, biotic interactions and thus ecosystem functioning, as a consequence of coexisting species exhibiting a wide range of thermal sensitivities. There is, however, a dearth of research examining warming impacts on natural communities.2. Here, we used a natural warming experiment in Iceland to investigate the changes in above-ground terrestrial plant and invertebrate communities along a soil temperature gradient (10°C-30°C).3. The α-diversity of plants and invertebrates decreased with increasing soil temperature, driven by decreasing plant species richness and increasing dominance of certain invertebrate species in warmer habitats. There was also greater species turnover in both plant and invertebrate communities with increasing pairwise temperature difference between sites. There was no effect of temperature on percentage cover of vegetation at the community level, driven by contrasting effects at the population level.4. There was a reduction in the mean body mass and an increase in the total abundance of the invertebrate community, resulting in no overall change in community biomass. There were contrasting effects of temperature on the population abundance of various invertebrate species, which could be explained by differential thermal tolerances and metabolic requirements, or may have been mediated by changes in plant community composition. 5. Our study provides an important baseline from which the effect of changing environmental conditions on terrestrial communities can be tracked. It also contributes to our understanding of why community-level studies of warming impacts are imperative if we are to disentangle the contrasting thermal responses of individual populations.
K E Y W O R D SArctic, climate change, Hengill, invertebrate community, natural experiment, pitfall, soil temperature, vegetationThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
“…Ecological vegetation restoration is an effective method for controlling soil erosion, a strenuous task that needs to be executed over long time periods in the loess hilly region [3,4]. Soil water and heat are important factors that influence vegetation development, characterized using soil moisture and temperature [5,6]. Therefore, investigating the variability in soil moisture and temperature is important for vegetation restoration in the loess hilly region.…”
Various land use types have been implemented by the government in the loess hilly region of China to facilitate sustainable land use. Understanding the variability in soil moisture and temperature under various sloping land use types can aid the ecological restoration and sustainable utilization of sloping land resources. The objective of this study was to use approximate entropy (ApEn) to reveal the variations in soil moisture and temperature under different land use types, because ApEn only requires a short data series to obtain robust estimates, with a strong anti-interference ability. An experiment was conducted with four typical land use scenarios (i.e., soybean sloping field, maize terraced field, jujube orchard, and grassland) over two consecutive plant growing seasons (2014 and 2015), and the time series of soil moisture and temperature within different soil depth layers of each land use type were measured in both seasons. The results showed that the changing amplitude, degree of variation, and active layer of soil moisture in the 0–160 cm soil depth layer, as well as the changing amplitude and degree of variation of soil temperature in the 0–100 cm soil layer increased in the jujube orchard over the two growing seasons. The changing amplitude, degree of variation, and active layer of soil moisture all decreased in the maize terraced field, as did the changing amplitude and degree of variation of soil temperature. The ApEn of the soil moisture series was the lowest in the 0–160 cm soil layer in the maize terraced field, and the ApEn of the soil temperature series was the highest in the 0–100 cm layer in the jujube orchard in the two growing seasons. Finally, the jujube orchard soil moisture and temperature change process were more variable, whereas the changes in the maize terraced field were more stable, with a stable soil moisture and temperature. This work highlights the usefulness of ApEn for revealing soil moisture and temperature changes and to guide the management and development of sloping fields.
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