Klebelsberg revisited: did primary succession of plants in glacier forelands a century ago differ from today?

Fickert, Thomas; Grüninger, Friederike; Damm, Bodo

doi:10.1007/s00035-016-0179-1

Cited by 26 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…We express the change in landscape cover that occurs during vegetation succession through a stepwise parameterization of the runoff ratio. Runoff ratios range from 0.5 (forest) to ∼ 1 (ice or rocky alpine terrain with no vegetation) and depend on the vegetation type (Andréassian, 2004;Filoso et al, 2017). We parameterize vegetation type using four runoff ratios, such that…”

Section: Nonglacier Runoffmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of glacier loss and vegetation succession on annual basin runoff

Carnahan

Amundson

Hood

2019

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. We use a simplified glacier-landscape model to investigate the degree to which basin topography, climate regime, and vegetation succession impact centennial variations in basin runoff during glacier retreat. In all simulations, annual basin runoff initially increases as water is released from glacier storage but ultimately decreases to below preretreat levels due to increases in evapotranspiration and decreases in orographic precipitation. We characterize the long-term (> 200 years) annual basin runoff curves with four metrics: the magnitude and timing of peak basin runoff, the time to preretreat basin runoff, and the magnitude of end basin runoff. We find that basin slope and climate regime have strong impacts on the magnitude and timing of peak basin runoff. Shallow sloping basins exhibit a later and larger peak basin runoff than steep basins and, similarly, continental glaciers produce later and larger peak basin runoff compared to maritime glaciers. Vegetation succession following glacier loss has little impact on the peak basin runoff but becomes increasingly important as time progresses, with more rapid and extensive vegetation leading to shorter times to preretreat basin runoff and lower levels of end basin runoff. We suggest that differences in the magnitude and timing of peak basin runoff in our simulations can largely be attributed to glacier dynamics: glaciers with long response times (i.e., those that respond slowly to climate change) are pushed farther out of equilibrium for a given climate forcing and produce larger variations in basin runoff than glaciers with short response times. Overall, our results demonstrate that glacier dynamics and vegetation succession should receive roughly equal attention when assessing the impacts of glacier mass loss on water resources.

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Section: Nonglacier Runoffmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of glacier loss and vegetation succession on annual basin runoff

Carnahan

Amundson

Hood

2019

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…The rate of primary succession is likely to be increased by warming, and the trajectory may be further influenced by related factors critical to vegetation such as increased atmospheric CO 2 , changes in precipitation and altered tissue carbon: nutrient ratios (IPCC, ). For example, recent investigation of a previously studied glacier foreland chronosequence revealed that the current rate of primary succession is faster than it was about 100 years ago, probably due to climate warming (Fickert, Grüninger, & Damm, ).…”

Section: Dispersal Primary Succession and Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

When and where does dispersal limitation matter in primary succession?

Makoto

Wilson

2018

Journal of Ecology

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Primary succession encompasses the earliest and most fundamental stages of community assembly. The relative contributions of plant dispersal and ecosystem development, the main drivers that control the rate of primary succession, remain largely unknown, in spite of their central roles in community organization in general. Understanding the contribution of dispersal is especially critical because it casts light on our ability to manage succession resulting from climate change or anthropogenic disturbance. Here, we review the literature in order to understand when and where dispersal limits primary succession. Studies from many systems (tropical, temperate, boreal, arctic, alpine, floodplain forest, desert, mines, volcanic eruption and glacier forelands) show that dispersal limitation occurs consistently in the early stages of primary succession, suggesting that this is a general pattern. On the other hand, we found strong biases in study sites towards the Northern Hemisphere, temperate regions, volcanic eruptions and glacier forelands, which suggests that there are risks in drawing general conclusions about the importance of dispersal for primary succession for other biomes. Little is known about the contribution of dispersal to the later stages of primary succession. We present a recently developed method, multiscale chronosequence comparison that compares rates of succession in similar systems at relatively small and large spatial scales. Rapid succession at small scales compared to large scales suggests that seed dispersal influences succession over time periods of centuries and also limits the development of ecosystem functions such as vegetation cover and soil carbon accumulation. Synthesis: Dispersal limitation likely matters not only in the early stages but also in the late stages of primary succession by controlling the rate at which new species arrive. Both the accumulation of comparable case studies and novel approaches, such as multiscale chronosequence comparisons and factorial experiments, in contrasting biomes, are necessary to clarify the generality or context dependency of the role of dispersal in future primary successions undergoing changing climate.

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“…Ref. [54] employed these two spatiotemporally different data sets to address the question whether primary succession of plants in glacier forelands today differs from the past concerning the dynamics of colonization, the plant species involved, and their respective biological traits. The main outcome of this study was that even if additional species occur and the colonization apparently is faster today compared to the past, fundamental differences concerning the floristic inventory, the biological traits, or the colonization strategies of the early colonizers due to climate change do not exist.…”

Section: Long-term Vegetation Development In Glacier Forelands As Indmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The vertical shift of the glacier snout of Lenksteinferner between the early twentieth and early twenty-first century amounts approximately 300 m in elevation. Assuming a mean adiabatic temperature lapse rate of −0.57 K/100 m, mean annual temperatures between the two elevational levels differ by 1.7 K [54]. This value corresponds quiet well to the magnitude of climate warming between the two sampling dates, and therefore, almost identical thermal conditions can be assumed for the recent glacier foreland (at higher elevation but affected by climate warming) and the one at the beginning of the last century (at lower elevations but under colder climate).…”

Section: Long-term Vegetation Development In Glacier Forelands As Indmentioning

confidence: 99%

Glacier Forelands – Unique Field Laboratories for the Study of Primary Succession of Plants

Fickert¹

2017

Glaciers Evolution in a Changing World

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While receding glaciers in several respects are related to negative consequences for resident people down river (e.g., water security, glacial lake outburst floods, etc.), from an ecological point of view, they are unique field laboratories to study vegetation development and dynamics from the very beginning. As the bare ground exposed by the receding glaciers generally does not provide a seed bank, the colonization of formerly ice-covered ground represents a true primary succession. There are two different approaches to study vegetation dynamics in glacier forelands: permanent plots and chronosequences ("space for time substitution"). As both procedures have their respective pros and cons, they should not be regarded to be mutually exclusive; rather, they should complement each other for a comprehensive understanding of the vegetation dynamics in glacier forelands. This chapter gives a general overview on patterns and processes of vegetation development in glacier forelands based on vegetation sampling in two glacier forelands of the Eastern Alps employing both abovementioned approaches. Sampling records groundcover of all vascular plants, structural features such as life form composition and dispersal biology types of the species as well as site characteristics. The two different approaches give evidence for both the early vegetation dynamics after deglaciation by the permanent plot studies and for potential future developments by the chronosequences.

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Klebelsberg revisited: did primary succession of plants in glacier forelands a century ago differ from today?

Cited by 26 publications

References 19 publications

Impact of glacier loss and vegetation succession on annual basin runoff

Impact of glacier loss and vegetation succession on annual basin runoff

When and where does dispersal limitation matter in primary succession?

Glacier Forelands – Unique Field Laboratories for the Study of Primary Succession of Plants

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