Ecological Responses to Climate Change at Biogeographical Boundaries

Pálinkás, Melinda

doi:10.5772/intechopen.69514

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 109 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In particular, the locally spatially-variable role of herbivores has been shown to have a profound effect on plant species turnover (Chase et al 2000). Linking back to the concept that the degree of community stability depends on species composition (Lawton 1994;De Boeck et al 2017), the ratio of generalist to specialist species would have a notable effect on the resilience to climate change (Pálinkás 2018). Stochastic processes will also have a variable impact, with chance extirpation of a single species potentially having a minimal effect or triggering substantial cascade effects, especially if keystone species are involved.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vegetation community changes in European woodlands amid a changing climate: a palaeoecological modelling perspective

Webb

Goodenough

2021

COMMUNITY ECOLOGY

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Climate has an important role in shaping the composition and structure of woodlands. There is considerable uncertainty regarding how woodlands will respond to climate change over the next hundred years. To better understand likely responses to contemporary climate change, this paper analyses taxonomic richness, evenness and community similarity in palaeoecological data from 31 European woodlands during an abrupt cooling and warming event c. 8,200 years ago. Repeated measures ANOVAs demonstrated there was no significant overall difference in richness or community evenness over time. A single significant pairwise contrast was found (richness decreased as climate warmed) but was short-lived, indicating that high-level effects were temporary. However, analysis of species turnover measured using community similarity revealed substantial changes (only 24% of species remained at some sites after climatic change), indicating that the actual species within that community had altered. General(ised) Linear Models showed variation in the direction and magnitude of community change was not related to the broadscale biogeographical variables of latitude, longitude or altitude. Our research has several important implications for practitioners involved in community ecology research and woodland management. Although site-level richness is largely unaffected, we caution that there will be considerable species turnover in woodlands as the climate warms. As species turnover at individual sites will have a negligible effect if driven by localised random processes, we recommend practitioners to consider long-term gamma diversity wherever possible. This shifts focus towards landscape-scale approaches that span generations rather than the typical 3-5-year span of funding, management plans and political cycles.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vegetation community changes in European woodlands amid a changing climate: a palaeoecological modelling perspective

Webb

Goodenough

2021

COMMUNITY ECOLOGY

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…forest collapses) are present. They are likely to indicate the onset of the middle stage of mass extinction, which may be irreversible [92].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics of Collapsing Ecosystems and Main Factors of Collapses

Pálinkás¹

2018

Ecosystem Services and Global Ecology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The synergistic effects of direct human perturbations and climate change have been causing the mass extinction of species. Here, I present the deterministic factors of collapses in present ecosystems. I captured and synthesized the key deterministic traits and processes before a collapse in the peer-reviewed literature. The results of the literature review show that deterministic factors can be used as early warning signals of collapses. The literature also suggests that we have entered the middle stage of global mass extinction, which may be irreversible.

show abstract

“…The Niobrara Valley Preserve is owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy. They manage for expansion of Juniperus virginiana, which is occurring throughout the Great Plains (Meneguzzo & Liknes, 2015;Msanne et al, 2017;Twidwell et al, 2013), paralleling woody encroachment globally (Abiem et al, 2020;Cardoso et al, 2021;Pálinkás, 2018). Management activities in the Niobrara plot consisted of a thinning of large J. virginiana stems in summer 2017 and a low-intensity prescribed burn in October 2020.…”

Section: Study Site and Census Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Topographically driven microclimatic gradients shape patterns of forest structure, diversity, and composition at a forest-grassland transition zone

McNichol

Wang

Hefner

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Globally, forests provide important ecosystem services, but anthropogenic change may shift the boundaries of forested biomes, because small-scale environmental changes govern biome transitions. This is especially true in semi-arid forests, where minor topographic and microclimatic changes influence forest functioning and transitions to open biomes such as grasslands. However, we lack quantitative descriptions of topographically driven microclimate variation and how it shapes forest structure, diversity, and composition in these transition zones.Leveraging a 20.2-ha forest inventory plot (Niobrara plot) at a semi-arid forest-grassland transition zone in the Niobrara River valley (Nebraska, USA), we paired data on abundances and distributions of seedlings, saplings, and adults of woody species with topographic and microclimate data to test the hypothesis that if topographic variation causes variation in microclimate that affects forest function, then forest structure, diversity, and composition should vary significantly with topography and microclimate.Microclimatic variation within the Niobrara plot strongly corresponded with topography, creating a sharp water availability and exposure gradient from the river floodplain to the forest-grassland transition zone. The magnitude of microclimate variation corresponded to that of regional macroclimate variation. Mean soil moisture was 10.2% lower along the higher-elevation transition zone than in the canyon bottoms, corresponding to variation across approximately 2.5 degrees of longitude. Mean air temperature increased by 2.2 °C from the canyon bottoms to upper canyon, corresponding to variation across approximately 3 degrees of latitude.Forest structure, diversity, and composition correlated strongly with topographic and microclimatic gradients. More complex forest structure and higher species richness of adults and saplings occurred in moister, less exposed habitats with steeper slopes and lower elevations, whereas seedling stem density and richness were higher in higher-light, moister habitats at lower elevations. Species occupied well-defined topographic niches, promoting high beta diversity along topographic and microclimatic gradients and high species turnover from the floodplain to the transition zone.Synthesis: Microclimatic and topographic variation drive patterns of structure, diversity, and composition in the forests at this forest-grassland transition zone. As the macroclimate becomes warmer and drier, topographically mediated microclimatic refuges supporting diverse, structurally complex forested ecosystems may shrink in semi-arid regions.

show abstract

Ecological Responses to Climate Change at Biogeographical Boundaries

Cited by 6 publications

References 109 publications

Vegetation community changes in European woodlands amid a changing climate: a palaeoecological modelling perspective

Vegetation community changes in European woodlands amid a changing climate: a palaeoecological modelling perspective

Characteristics of Collapsing Ecosystems and Main Factors of Collapses

Topographically driven microclimatic gradients shape patterns of forest structure, diversity, and composition at a forest-grassland transition zone

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About