Effects of a warmer climate on seed germination in the subarctic

Milbau, Ann; Graae, Bente Jessen; Shevtsova, Anna; Nijs, Ivan

doi:10.1093/aob/mcp117

Cited by 157 publications

(175 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…by their prospering and spread along roadsides far below the treeline, where emerging trees and shrubs are regularly mechanically exterminated (Kullman 2006;Westerström 2008;; http://www.kullmantreeline.com). Given that analogous disturbances by wind, water, slope and cryogenic processes continue to prevent full closure of tree-and ground-cover layers at high elevations (Kullman and Ö berg 2009), it is possible that growth and reproduction will become stimulated for some of those alpine species, which tolerate modestly warm conditions (Dahl 1998;Milbau et al 2009). In fact, observational data from the Alps indicate growing population sizes of certain highmountain species (Pauli et al 2001).…”

Section: Land Above the Treesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Richer, Greener and Smaller Alpine World: Review and Projection of Warming-Induced Plant Cover Change in the Swedish Scandes

Kullman

2010

AMBIO

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Alpine plant life is proliferating, biodiversity is on the rise and the mountain world appears more productive and inviting than ever. Upper range margin rise of trees and low-altitude (boreal) plant species, expansion of alpine grasslands and dwarf-shrub heaths are the modal biotic adjustments during the past few decades, after a century of substantial climate warming in the Swedish Scandes. This course of biotic landscape evolution has reached historical dimensions and broken a multi-millennial trend of plant cover retrogression, alpine tundra expansion, floristic and faunal impoverishment, all imposed by progressive and deterministic neoglacial climate cooling. Continued modest warming over the present century will likely be beneficial to alpine biodiversity, geoecological stability, resilience, sustainable reindeer husbandry and aesthetic landscape qualities. These aspects are highlighted by an integrative review of results from long-term monitoring of subalpine/alpine vegetation in the Swedish Scandes. This forms the basis for some tentative projections of landscape transformations in a potentially warmer future. Notably, these results and projections are not necessarily valid in other regions and differ in some respects from model predictions. Continued monitoring is mandatory as a basis for generation of more realistic vegetation and ecosystem models.

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Section: Land Above the Treesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Richer, Greener and Smaller Alpine World: Review and Projection of Warming-Induced Plant Cover Change in the Swedish Scandes

Kullman

2010

AMBIO

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“…There are a small but increasing number of studies addressing the possible effects of warming on germination ecology of alpine species [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. However, the results of these studies have led to uncertainties in answering the important question: does a warmer alpine climate favor or hamper the germination of seeds?…”

Section: Journal Of Botanymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We were able to include only five studies in their entirety; all the combination of treatments applied to different species listed in these five studies met our review requirements: 6 rows [27], 6 rows [31], 46 rows [28], 16 rows [26], and 90 rows [25]. In some other studies, only part of the investigation made it into our analysis as treatments were omitted because they could not be satisfactorily compared to the control.…”

Section: Empirical Studies Of Warming Effects On Seed Germinationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given the growing awareness that (1) seed collection time and/or methods influences the dormancy status of seeds and (2) methods used under ex situ conditions may not represent prevailing in situ conditions, ecologists are increasingly becoming conscious of employing ecologically meaningful dormancy breaking treatments. In their natural high latitude and high altitude environments, seeds are kept under snow cover in a fully imbibed state with constant temperature close to 0 ∘ C. Thus, amongst several dormancy alleviation methods developed (e.g., cold-dry stratification and GA 3 application), cold-wet stratification is regarded as ecologically relevant [28,68]. According to C. C. Baskin and J. M. Baskin [22], dormancy breaking with cold-stratification occurs only in imbibed seeds; if the seeds are completely dry (physiologically <40% RH) the dormancy may not be broken.…”

Section: Dormancy Breakingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Inconclusive Predictions and Contradictions: A Lack of Consensus on Seed Germination Response to Climate Change at High Altitude and High Latitude

Jaganathan

Dalrymple

2016

Journal of Botany

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Climate change directly affects arctic-alpine plants and acute responses to increased temperatures may be seen in their reproductive fitness and germination ability. However, uncertainties prevail in predicting whether a future warmer climate favors or hampers seed germination in high latitude and high altitude soils and seed germination research in such systems has not been able to provide generalizable patterns of response. The available literature on this subject has been conducted at various locations contributing to difficulties in predicting the response of arctic-alpine seeds to climate change. Here, we show that discrepancies in seed collection, dormancy breaking treatments, and germination conditions found in the published literature are possible reasons for our inability to draw large scale conclusions. We explore how these factors influence the results and highlight the fact that many of the previous investigations have reported the effects of warmer temperature, rather than a warmer climate and all the associated complex environmental interactions, on seed germination. We recommend that long-term monitoring of seed response to treatments that mimic the present and future alpine climate is likely to produce more ecologically meaningful insights and suggest several practical steps that researchers can take that would facilitate greater coherence between studies.

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“…Therefore, assessing the effects of nutrient deposition on the early post-reproductive stages of plants, such as germination, is important in quantifying the mid-to long-term impacts of N and P deposition on ecosystems (Ackerly and Bazzaz 1995;Callahan et al 2008). Although water availability (Khurana and Singh 2004;Renzhong and Qiong 2004;Ronnenberg et al 2008), temperature (Ronnenberg et al 2008;Milbau et al 2009), soil properties (Roem et al 2002) and the intensity, as well as quality of available light (Metcalfe 1996;Broncano et al 1998;Holl et al 2000;Ceccon et al 2003;Luna and Moreno 2009), are all well recognised as important determinants of germination success, the role of nutrient availability remains poorly quantified. As a considerable fraction of a seed's mass is made up of stored carbohydrate and nutrient reserves (Fenner and Thompson 2005), it can be argued that the availability of nutrients in the germination media or environment may have only a minimal effect, if any on germination success (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of nutrient addition and soil drainage on germination of N-fixing and non-N-fixing tropical dry forest tree species

2016

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To develop generalised predictions regarding the effects of atmospheric nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) deposition on vegetation communities, it is necessary to account for the impacts of increased nutrient availability on the early life history stages of plants. Additionally, it is important to determine if these responses (a) differ between plant functional groups and (b) are modulated by soil drainage, which may affect the persistence of added nutrients. We experimentally assessed seed germination responses (germination proportion and germination energy, i.e. time to germination) of commonly occurring N-fixing and non-N-fixing tropical dry forest tree species found in India to simulated N and P deposition in well-drained soils, as well as soils with impeded drainage. When soils were not allowed to drain, germination proportion declined with nutrient addition, while germination energy remained unchanged. Stronger declines in germination proportion were observed for N-fixing species. In free-draining soils, nutrient addition did not affect germination proportion in either functional group. However, we detected a trend of delayed germination with nutrient addition, especially in N-fixers. Our results suggest that nutrient deposition can lead to potential shifts in functional dominance and tree community composition of tropical dry forests in the long term through its effects on early life stages of trees, although the mechanisms underlying the observed germination responses remain unclear. Further, such effects are likely to be spatially variable across the geographic range in which tropical dry forests occur depending on soil drainage properties.

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Effects of a warmer climate on seed germination in the subarctic

Abstract: Seedling establishment is expected to improve in a future warmer subarctic climate, mainly by considerably earlier germination. The magnitudes of the responses are species-specific, which should be taken into account when modelling population growth and migration of subarctic species.

Cited by 157 publications

References 44 publications

A Richer, Greener and Smaller Alpine World: Review and Projection of Warming-Induced Plant Cover Change in the Swedish Scandes

A Richer, Greener and Smaller Alpine World: Review and Projection of Warming-Induced Plant Cover Change in the Swedish Scandes

Inconclusive Predictions and Contradictions: A Lack of Consensus on Seed Germination Response to Climate Change at High Altitude and High Latitude

Effects of nutrient addition and soil drainage on germination of N-fixing and non-N-fixing tropical dry forest tree species

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