Towards an understanding of future range shifts in lichens and mosses under climate change

Abstract

Aim: Lichens and mosses play important functional roles in all terrestrial ecosystems, particularly in tundra and drylands. As with all taxa, to maintain their current niche in a changing climate, lichens and mosses will have to migrate. However, there are no published estimates of future habitat suitability or necessary rates of migration for members of these groups at the global scale.Taxon: Lichens and mosses. Location: Global.Methods: Using global occurrence data, we conducted ensemble distribution models in the 'biomod2' R package, parameterised with a range of climatic, land use and soil variables, to estimate current and future (2100) habitat suitability in 16 abundant species of lichen and moss.Results: Without considering dispersal limitation, suitable area was forecast to expand for eight species and decline for four species. For species with predominantly boreoarctic distributions, suitable area typically declined at the temperate range edge and expanded across the High Arctic. Future suitable area available to dryland-adapted species generally declined overall, likely relating to the desiccation-tolerant physiology of lichens and mosses. The average migration rates required for species to disperse into new suitable habitat ranged from 1.7 (Placidium squamulosum) to 9.0 km year −1 (Syntrichia ruralis), although most species will need to migrate >16 km year −1 to completely fill their potential future suitable habitat.Main Conclusions: For mosses and lichens, as with all species, migration will be an important part of the adjustment to a warmer climate, but realisation of these potential migrations will require both rare dispersal events and habitat that is suitable in non-climatic dimensions. Current evidence on dispersal in these groups suggests that these geographical shifts may be unlikely to be realised without intervention, especially in landscapes that are highly modified by humans.

The microbiome of the lichenLobaria pulmonariavaries according to climate in Europe

“…Annual Mean Temperature, contributing 11.72% to the microbiome variation, regulates resource availability, primary productivity (Pierre et al, 2020), and microbial interactions (Apple et al, 2006; Knapp & Huang, 2022). The influence of these variables on lichen physiology, growth, and metabolism, including their effects on metabolic rates, water availability, and nutrient dynamics, aligns with already existing research (Finger-Higgens et al, 2022; Ladrón de Guevara et al, 2018; Mallen-Cooper et al, 2023; Nascimbene et al, 2016). Notably, while temperature-related variables emerge as key contributors, precipitation-related variables, such as precipitation seasonality and annual precipitation, play a comparatively minor role.…”

Limited range shifting in biocrusts despite climate warming: A 25‐year resurvey

“…High temperatures are likely to limit biocrust taxa at their arid range edge by enhancing evaporation, thereby restricting the ability of biocrust organisms to fix carbon. In addition, two global studies have shown that temperature is often the dominant control of the ranges of biocrust communities and species (Mallen‐Cooper et al, 2023; Rodriguez‐Caballero et al, 2018). We also derived six variables related to moisture availability: (1) annual rainfall, (2) summer rainfall, (3) non‐summer rainfall, calculated as the total rainfall from March to November, (4) the number of days where rainfall exceeded 1 mm, (5) the mean number of consecutive days between rainfall events >1 mm and (6) the number of days with >1 mm rainfall and maximum temperature > 30°C.…”

“…These studies indicate that biocrusts usually fail to colonise soils that have become compacted or unstable, because they cannot anchor to the surface and are easily buried by sediment (Weber et al, 2016). If dispersal and establishment limitations can be overcome, many generalist biocrust species have the potential to expand in total area at the global scale (Mallen‐Cooper et al, 2023).…”

Variable intraspecific response to climate change in a medicinally important African tree species, Vachellia sieberiana (DC.) (paperbark thorn)

“…The GCMs used in this study were the Canadian Earth System Model version 5 (CanESM5) (Swart et al, 2019), the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace Climate Model version 6A Low Resolution (IPSL-CM6A-LR) (Boucher et al, 2020), and the Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate version 6 (MIROC6) (Tatebe et al, 2019). The selected GCMs have been widely used in SDMs to make predictions of species' occurrence and impact of climate change (e.g., Adenkanmbi et al, 2023;Chen et al, 2023;Mallen-Cooper et al, 2023). The GCMs were selected by maximizing the intermodel distance among them according to Sanderson et al (2015).…”