Non-climatic constraints on upper elevational plant range expansion under climate change

Brown, Clifford M.; Vellend, Mark

doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.1779

Cited by 162 publications

(217 citation statements)

References 57 publications

(83 reference statements)

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“…Similar patterns have also been inferred for the elevation ranges of bryophytes (Cleavitt 2004). These results do not mean that biotic processes play no role in defining upper elevation limits (Brown and Vellend 2014), only that these tend to be weaker and harder to detect.…”

Section: Elevation and Successionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Disturbance and distributions: avoiding exclusion in a warming world

Sheil¹

2016

E&S

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ABSTRACT. I highlight how disturbance determines species distributions and the implications for conservation practice. In particular, I describe opportunities to mitigate some of the threats to species resulting from climate change. Ecological theory shows that disturbance processes can often slow or prevent the exclusion of species by competitors and that different disturbance regimes result in different realized niches. There is much evidence of disturbance influencing where species occur. For example, disturbance can lower the high elevation treeline, thus expanding the area for high elevation vegetation that cannot otherwise persist under tree cover. The role of disturbance in influencing interspecific competition and resulting species persistence and distributions appears unjustly neglected. I identify various implications, including opportunities to achieve in situ conservation by expanding plant species ranges and reducing species vulnerability to competitive exclusion. Suitable frequencies, scales, intensities, spatial configurations, and timings of the right forms of disturbance can improve the persistence of targeted species in a wide range of contexts. Such options could reduce the extinctions likely to be associated with climate change. More generally, these mechanisms and the resulting realizable niche also offer novel insights to understanding and manipulating species distributions.

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Section: Elevation and Successionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Disturbance and distributions: avoiding exclusion in a warming world

Sheil¹

2016

E&S

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“…However, studies that have tested this prediction against observations have revealed that species' responses to climatic change have been variable and unpredictable (Harsch et al 2009), suggesting that the processes controlling tree range expansion have yet to be definitively identified and may be site specific. For trees to advance beyond their current range, viable propagules must be available and disperse to microsites suitable for germination and establishment; seedlings must then overcome the ecological inertia of the ecosystem they are invading by outcompeting intact vegetation (Westman 1978) and escaping herbivory (Cairns andMoen 2004, Brown andVellend 2014). There is a fundamental gap in our understanding of the role these ecological characteristics play in the expansion of tree species' distributions into their climatic niches under current global change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reproduction as a bottleneck to treeline advance across the circumarctic forest tundra ecotone

et al. 2018

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The fundamental niche of many species is shifting with climate change, especially in sub-arctic ecosystems with pronounced recent warming. Ongoing warming in sub-arctic regions should lessen environmental constraints on tree growth and reproduction, leading to increased success of trees colonising tundra. Nevertheless, variable responses of treeline ecotones have been documented in association with warming temperatures. One explanation for time lags between increasingly favourable environmental conditions and treeline ecotone movement is reproductive limitations caused by low seed availability. Our objective was to assess the reproductive constraints of the dominant tree species at the treeline ecotone in the circumpolar north. We sampled reproductive structures of trees (cones and catkins) and stand attributes across circumarctic treeline ecotones. We used generalized linear mixed models to estimate the sensitivity of seed production and the availability of viable seed to regional climate, stand structure, and species-specific characteristics. Both seed production and viability of available seed were strongly driven by specific, sequential seasonal climatic conditions, but in different ways. Seed production was greatest when growing seasons with more growing degree days coincided with years with high precipitation. Two consecutive years with more growing degree days and low precipitation resulted in low seed production. Seasonal climate effects on the viability of available seed depended on the physical characteristics of the reproductive structures. Large-coned and -seeded species take more time to develop mature embryos and were therefore more sensitive to increases in growing degree days in the year of flowering and embryo development. Our findings suggest that both moisture stress and abbreviated growing seasons can have a notable negative influence on the production and viability of available seed at treeline. Our synthesis revealed that constraints on predispersal reproduction within the treeline ecotone might create a considerable time lag for range expansion of tree populations into tundra ecosystems.

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“…At a global scale temperature is the primary limiting factor affecting tree growth at both the altitudinal and latitudinal limit [14,62]. However, micro-site conditions, including growing season length, moisture availability, regeneration limitation, slope position and geomorphic limitations to growth, ultimately determine site suitability and tree growth potential [63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75].…”

Section: Growth and Stability At Alpine Treelinementioning

confidence: 99%

Growth and Its Relationship to Individual Genetic Diversity of Mountain Hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana) at Alpine Treeline in Alaska: Combining Dendrochronology and Genomics

Johnson

Chhetri

Krutovsky

et al. 2017

Forests

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Globally, alpine treelines are characterized as temperature-limited environments with strong controls on tree growth. However, at local scales spatially heterogeneous environments generally have more variable impacts on individual patterns of tree growth. In addition to the landscape spatial heterogeneity there is local variability in individual tree genetic diversity (level of individual heterozygosity). It has been hypothesized that higher individual heterozygosity will result in more consistent patterns of growth. In this article, we combine genomics and dendrochronology to explore the relationship between individual genetic diversity and tree growth at a mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana Bong. Carr) alpine treeline on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, USA. We correlated average observed individual heterozygosity with average tree-ring width and variance in tree-ring width within individuals to test the hypothesis that trees with higher individual heterozygosity will also have more consistent growth patterns, suggesting that they may be more resilient to climate and environmental fluctuations at the alpine treeline. Our results showed that there was no significant relationship between tree growth and individual heterozygosity. However, there was a significant positive relationship between average tree-ring width and variance in tree-ring width implying that overall, fast growing trees in stressful environments, such as the alpine treeline, grow unstably regardless of the level of individual heterozygosity.

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Non-climatic constraints on upper elevational plant range expansion under climate change

Cited by 162 publications

References 57 publications

Disturbance and distributions: avoiding exclusion in a warming world

Disturbance and distributions: avoiding exclusion in a warming world

Reproduction as a bottleneck to treeline advance across the circumarctic forest tundra ecotone

Growth and Its Relationship to Individual Genetic Diversity of Mountain Hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana) at Alpine Treeline in Alaska: Combining Dendrochronology and Genomics

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