21st century climate change threatens mountain flora unequally across Europe

Abstract

Continental-scale assessments of 21st century global impacts of climate change on biodiversity have forecasted range contractions for many species. These coarse resolution studies are, however, of limited relevance for projecting risks to biodiversity in mountain systems, where pronounced microclimatic variation could allow species to persist locally, and are ill-suited for assessment of species-specific threat in particular regions. Here, we assess the impacts of climate change on 2632 plant species across all major European mountain ranges, using high-resolution (ca. 100 m) species samples and data expressing four future climate scenarios. Projected habitat loss is greater for species distributed at higher elevations; depending on the climate scenario, we find 36-55% of alpine species, 31-51% of subalpine species and 19-46% of montane species lose more than 80% of their suitable habitat by 2070-2100. While our high-resolution analyses consistently indicate marked levels of threat to cold-adapted mountain florae across Europe, they also reveal unequal distribution of this threat across the various mountain ranges. Impacts on florae from regions projected to undergo increased warming accompanied by decreased precipitation, such as the Pyrenees and the Eastern Austrian Alps, will likely be greater than on florae in regions where the increase in temperature is less pronounced and rainfall increases concomitantly, such as in the Norwegian Scandes and the Scottish Highlands. This suggests that change in precipitation, not only warming, plays an important role in determining the potential impacts of climate change on vegetation

Land-use change under a warming climate facilitated upslope expansion of Himalayan silver fir (Abies spectabilis (D. Don) Spach)

“…However, a species' ability to respond is affected by local geomorphic processes (Macias-Fauria and Johnson 2013), grazing (Speed et al 2012) and community interactions such as dense grassland (Rehm and Feeley 2015). Based on the predicted required shifts, it seems that the species will not be able to track the projected warming which may cause them to lose their potential habitat (Engler et al 2011;Svenning et al 2008) and reduce their population size (Feeley and Silman 2010).…”

Four Decades of Plant Community Change in the Alpine Tundra of Southwest Yukon, Canada

“…In the latter case, this change was hypothesized to be a response to increases in the abundance of vascular plants. Engler et al (2011) conducted a meta-analysis of the impact of recent climate change on mountain biodiversity and concluded that impacts on florae depend on the relative changes in both temperature and precipitation, with drought having a larger effect than regions where rainfall has been increasing. However, changes in community composition and species diversity also vary with site and microsite characteristics.…”

Alpine vegetation along multiple environmental gradients and possible consequences of climate change

“…A number of recent studies have documented Europewide changes in alpine plant community composition, though there is clear spatial variation in the effects, both regionally and locally (Engler et al 2011;Gottfried et al 2012;Pauli et al 2012;Elumeeva et al 2013). Furthermore, this trend is projected to continue in the future, with stronger impacts in areas where increased temperature coincides with reduced precipitation (Engler et al 2011).…”

“…Furthermore, this trend is projected to continue in the future, with stronger impacts in areas where increased temperature coincides with reduced precipitation (Engler et al 2011). Thus, it is of interest to document how different plant communities respond to such environmental changes.…”