Increased snow accumulation reduces survival and growth in dominant mat-forming arctic-alpine lichens

Bidussi, Massimo; Solhaug, Knut Asbjørn; Gauslaa, Yngvar

doi:10.1017/s0024282916000086

Cited by 23 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Because intraspecific variability can help maintain community stability and functioning under changing environmental conditions (Jung, Violle, Mondy, Hoffmann, & Muller, ; Malyshev et al, ), the lichen communities would be more likely to resist environmental change than the bryophyte and vascular plant communities which lack the intraspecific plasticity needed to cope with environmental change. This line of thought is contrasted by studies showing that lichen (and bryophyte) communities respond negatively in terms of diversity and abundance to global change phenomena such as increased temperatures and changes in precipitation and snow cover (Alatalo, Jägerbrand, Chen, & Molau, ; Bidussi et al, ; Elmendorf et al, ; Jägerbrand, Kudo, Alatalo, & Molau, ; Lang et al, ). In most of these studies, the decline of non‐vascular vegetation observed under climate warming is likely due to increased competition from vascular plants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…czerepanovii ). Because many lichens respond negatively to snow cover (Bidussi, Solhaug, & Gauslaa, ; Niittynen & Luoto, ) and are therefore absent from depressions in the landscape where snow accumulates, we selected sites on exposed ridges that support communities with a mixed cover of vascular plants, lichens and bryophytes. The vascular plant communities are relatively species poor, with Empetrum nigrum , Vaccinium uliginosum and Betula nana as most common at the lowest elevations and Carex bigelowii and Salix herbacea at the higher elevations.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Contrasting drivers of community‐level trait variation for vascular plants, lichens and bryophytes across an elevational gradient

et al. 2019

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Across environmental gradients, community‐level functional traits of plants can change due to species turnover, intraspecific variation and their covariation. Studies on vascular plants suggest that species turnover is the main driver of trait variation across gradients, although intraspecific variation can also be important. However, there is limited knowledge about whether this holds for non‐vascular primary producers such as lichens and bryophytes. We hypothesized that intraspecific variation is more important for non‐vascular than for vascular primary producers because they lack specialized structures to maintain homeostasis and should therefore be more responsive to extrinsic factors. To assess the relative importance of species turnover versus intraspecific variation for vascular plants, lichens and bryophytes, we estimated species abundance and measured chemical (tissue nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) content, N:P ratio and pH) and non‐chemical (specific leaf or thallus area, dry matter content and water holding capacity) functional traits along an elevational gradient in alpine southern Norway. We calculated community‐weighted mean traits and quantified the relative contribution of species turnover, intraspecific variation and their covariation to total trait variation across the gradient. We found mixed support for our hypothesis: the contribution of intraspecific variation to total trait variation for N and N:P was higher in lichens than in vascular plants and bryophytes, but in general the contribution of intraspecific variation differed among functional traits and producer groups. Nutrient variables (N, P and N:P) were significantly impacted by intraspecific variation for vascular plants and lichens but not for bryophytes. Non‐chemical traits and pH were mainly driven by species turnover effects in all primary producer groups. Our results highlight that while nearly all studies on primary producer trait variation across environments have focused on vascular plants, trait variation of other largely neglected but ecologically important producer groups, such as lichens and bryophytes, may show very different responses to the same environmental factors. In order to fully understand how future environmental changes impact on community‐ and ecosystem‐level processes, traits of primary producers other than vascular plants—and their within‐species variation—need to be considered in systems where these groups are abundant. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contrasting drivers of community‐level trait variation for vascular plants, lichens and bryophytes across an elevational gradient

et al. 2019

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“…It is also known that lichens show differential sensitivity to snow burial 15–17 . Snowkill is expected, therefore, to not only lead to the death of some lichens but also to consequential changes in biodiversity because of their different sensitivities.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Warming and Cooling in the Antarctic Peninsula Region has Rapid and Large Effects on Lichen Vegetation

Sancho

Pintado

Navarro

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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The Antarctic Peninsula has had a globally large increase in mean annual temperature from the 1951 to 1998 followed by a decline that still continues. The challenge is now to unveil whether these recent, complex and somewhat unexpected climatic changes are biologically relevant. We were able to do this by determining the growth of six lichen species on recently deglaciated surfaces over the last 24 years. Between 1991 and 2002, when mean summer temperature (MST) rose by 0.42 °C, five of the six species responded with increased growth. MST declined by 0.58 °C between 2002 and 2015 with most species showing a fall in growth rate and two of which showed a collapse with the loss of large individuals due to a combination of increased snow fall and longer snow cover duration. Increased precipitation can, counter-intuitively, have major negative effects when it falls as snow at cooler temperatures. The recent Antarctic cooling is having easily detectable and deleterious impacts on slow growing and highly stress-tolerant crustose lichens, which are comparable in extent and dynamics, and reverses the gains observed over the previous decades of exceptional warming.

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“…Some lichen CBSCs degrade fairly quickly during thallus senescence, suggesting that they only impact micro‐arthropods during the early stages of decomposition (Asplund & Wardle, ). However, other compounds are more recalcitrant and thus increase in concentration relative to thallus litter mass, and are therefore likely to have longer term effects on micro‐arthropod feeding activity (Bidussi, Solhaug & Gauslaa, ).…”

Section: How Variation Among Lichens Affects Ecosystem Nutrient and Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

How lichens impact on terrestrial community and ecosystem properties

2016

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Lichens occur in most terrestrial ecosystems; they are often present as minor contributors, but in some forests, drylands and tundras they can make up most of the ground layer biomass. As such, lichens dominate approximately 8% of the Earth's land surface. Despite their potential importance in driving ecosystem biogeochemistry, the influence of lichens on community processes and ecosystem functioning have attracted relatively little attention. Here, we review the role of lichens in terrestrial ecosystems and draw attention to the important, but often overlooked role of lichens as determinants of ecological processes. We start by assessing characteristics that vary among lichens and that may be important in determining their ecological role; these include their growth form, the types of photobionts that they contain, their key functional traits, their water-holding capacity, their colour, and the levels of secondary compounds in their thalli. We then assess how these differences among lichens influence their impacts on ecosystem and community processes. As such, we consider the consequences of these differences for determining the impacts of lichens on ecosystem nutrient inputs and fluxes, on the loss of mass and nutrients during lichen thallus decomposition, and on the role of lichenivorous invertebrates in moderating decomposition. We then consider how differences among lichens impact on their interactions with consumer organisms that utilize lichen thalli, and that range in size from microfauna (for which the primary role of lichens is habitat provision) to large mammals (for which lichens are primarily a food source). We then address how differences among lichens impact on plants, through for example increasing nutrient inputs and availability during primary succession, and serving as a filter for plant seedling establishment. Finally we identify areas in need of further work for better understanding the role of lichens in terrestrial ecosystems. These include understanding how the high intraspecific trait variation that characterizes many lichens impacts on community assembly processes and ecosystem functioning, how multiple species mixtures of lichens affect the key community- and ecosystem-level processes that they drive, the extent to which lichens in early succession influence vascular plant succession and ecosystem development in the longer term, and how global change drivers may impact on ecosystem functioning through altering the functional composition of lichen communities.

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Increased snow accumulation reduces survival and growth in dominant mat-forming arctic-alpine lichens

Cited by 23 publications

References 64 publications

Contrasting drivers of community‐level trait variation for vascular plants, lichens and bryophytes across an elevational gradient

Contrasting drivers of community‐level trait variation for vascular plants, lichens and bryophytes across an elevational gradient

Recent Warming and Cooling in the Antarctic Peninsula Region has Rapid and Large Effects on Lichen Vegetation

How lichens impact on terrestrial community and ecosystem properties

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