Plant traits inform predictions of tundra responses to global change

Myers‐Smith, Isla H.; Thomas, Haydn J. D.; Bjorkman, Anne D.

doi:10.1111/nph.15592

Cited by 86 publications

(92 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Similar community trajectories have also been observed over the course of decades using forest vegetation resurveys (Bernhardt‐Römermann et al, ; Perring, Bernhardt‐Römermann, et al, ; Verheyen et al, ). Furthermore, this trend of a taller vegetation with warming was not restricted to forest areas, but has also been observed in the faster warming tundra biome (Bjorkman et al, ; Myers‐Smith, Thomas, & Bjorkman, ). The height increase in tundra communities is attributed to species turnover rather than ITV (Bjorkman et al, ; Steinbauer et al, ), which matches the observations in our forest understorey experiment.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Light and warming drive forest understorey community development in different environments

Blondeel

Perring

Depauw

et al. 2020

Global Change Biology

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Plant community composition and functional traits respond to chronic drivers such as climate change and nitrogen (N) deposition. In contrast, pulse disturbances from ecosystem management can additionally change resources and conditions. Community responses to combined environmental changes may further depend on land‐use legacies. Disentangling the relative importance of these global change drivers is necessary to improve predictions of future plant communities. We performed a multifactor global change experiment to disentangle drivers of herbaceous plant community trajectories in a temperate deciduous forest. Communities of five species, assembled from a pool of 15 forest herb species with varying ecological strategies, were grown in 384 mesocosms on soils from ancient forest (forested at least since 1850) and postagricultural forest (forested since 1950) collected across Europe. Mesocosms were exposed to two‐level full‐factorial treatments of warming, light addition (representing changing forest management) and N enrichment. We measured plant height, specific leaf area (SLA) and species cover over the course of three growing seasons. Increasing light availability followed by warming reordered the species towards a taller herb community, with limited effects of N enrichment or the forest land‐use history. Two‐way interactions between treatments and incorporating intraspecific trait variation (ITV) did not yield additional inference on community height change. Contrastingly, community SLA differed when considering ITV along with species reordering, which highlights ITV’s importance for understanding leaf morphology responses to nutrient enrichment in dark conditions. Contrary to our expectations, we found limited evidence of land‐use legacies affecting community responses to environmental changes, perhaps because dispersal limitation was removed in the experimental design. These findings can improve predictions of community functional trait responses to global changes by acknowledging ITV, and subtle changes in light availability. Adaptive forest management to impending global change could benefit the restoration and conservation of understorey plant communities by reducing the light availability.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Light and warming drive forest understorey community development in different environments

Blondeel

Perring

Depauw

et al. 2020

Global Change Biology

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“…Woody encroachment has important implications for ecosystem functions in both biomes, which can lead to ecosystem‐scale feedbacks. In the tundra, shifts in species composition can alter litter inputs to the soil and resulting decomposition, potentially leading to increased carbon turnover (McLaren et al, ; Myers‐Smith, Thomas, & Bjorkman, ). Likewise, shrub cover increase can result in decreased albedo and associated alteration of snowmelt timing (Loranty & Goetz, ) resulting in an increase in near‐surface temperatures (Rydsaa, Stordal, Bryn, & Tallaksen, ), ecosystem respiration (Ge, Lafleur, & Humphreys, ), and permafrost thaw depth (Li et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Woody plant encroachment intensifies under climate change across tundra and savanna biomes

Criado

Myers‐Smith

Bjorkman

et al. 2020

Global Ecol Biogeogr

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155

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Aim Biomes worldwide are shifting with global change. Biomes whose extents are limited by temperature or precipitation, such as the tundra and savanna, may be particularly strongly affected by climate change. While woody plant encroachment is prevalent across both biomes, its relationship to temperature and precipitation change remains unknown. Here, we quantify the degree to which woody encroachment is related to climate change and identify its main associated drivers. Location Tundra and savanna biomes. Time period 1992 ± 20.27–2010 ± 5.62 (mean ± SD). 1876–2016 (range). Major taxa studied Woody plants (shrubs and trees). Methods We compiled a dataset comprising 1,089 records from 899 sites of woody plant cover over time and attributed drivers of woody cover change across these two biomes. We calculated cover change in each biome and assessed the degree to which cover change corresponds to concurrent temperature and precipitation changes using multiple climate metrics. Finally, we conducted a quantitative literature review of the relative importance of attributed drivers of woody cover change. Results Woody encroachment was widespread geographically and across climate gradients. Rates of woody cover change (positive or negative) were 1.8 times lower in the tundra than in the savanna (1.8 vs. 3.2%), while rates of woody cover increase (i.e., encroachment) were c. 1.7 times lower in the tundra compared with the savanna (3.7 vs. 6.3% per decade). In the tundra, magnitudes of woody cover change did not correspond to climate, while in the savanna, greater cover change corresponded with increases in precipitation. We found higher rates of woody cover change in wetter versus drier sites with warming in the tundra biome, and higher rates of woody cover change in drier versus wetter sites with increasing precipitation in the savanna. However, faster rates of woody cover change were not associated with more rapid rates of climate change across sites, except for maximum precipitation in the savanna. Main conclusions Woody encroachment was positively related to warming in the tundra and increased rainfall in the savanna. However, cover change rates were not predicted by rates of climate change, which can be partially explained by climate interactions in both biomes. Additional likely influences include site‐level factors, time‐lags, plant‐specific responses, and land use and other non‐climate drivers. Our findings highlight the complex nature of climate change impacts in biomes limited by seasonality, which should be accounted for to realistically estimate future responses across open biomes under global change scenarios.

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“…Most leaf functional traits, such as morphological and physiological characteristics, vary considerably among and within species (Albert et al., 2010; Kattge et al., 2011). These variations are closely related to the environment, and the relationships between leaf traits and the environment are increasingly used to study the impacts of climate change on ecosystem functioning, especially in the tundra (Albert et al., 2010; Bjorkman et al., 2018; Myers‐Smith, Thomas, & Bjorkman, 2019; Soudzilovskaia et al., 2013). In such research, leaf size is one of the most commonly used functional traits because it strongly affects light interception and leaf temperature (Falster & Westoby, 2003; Gates, 1968) and has an important influence on leaf energy balance, water balance, and aboveground biomass accumulation (Farquhar, Buckley, & Miller, 2002; Parkhurst & Loucks, 1972; Street, Shaver, Williams, & Van Wijk, 2007; Wang et al., 2019; Wright et al., 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leaf size variations in a dominant desert shrub, Reaumuria soongarica, adapted to heterogeneous environments

Fan

Yan

Chen

et al. 2020

Ecology and Evolution

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The climate in arid Central Asia (ACA) has changed rapidly in recent decades, but the ecological consequences of this are far from clear. To predict the impacts of climate change on ecosystem functioning, greater attention should be given to the relationships between leaf functional traits and environmental heterogeneity. As a dominant constructive shrub widely distributed in ACA, Reaumuria soongarica provided us with an ideal model to understand how leaf functional traits of desert ecosystems responded to the heterogeneous environments of ACA. Here, to determine the influences of genetic and ecological factors, we characterized species‐wide variations in leaf traits among 30 wild populations of R. soongarica and 16 populations grown in a common garden. We found that the leaf length, width, and leaf length to width ratio (L/W) of the northern lineage were significantly larger than those of other genetic lineages, and principal component analysis based on the in situ environmental factors distinguished the northern lineage from the other lineages studied. With increasing latitude, leaf length, width, and L/W in the wild populations increased significantly. Leaf length and L/W were negatively correlated with altitude, and first increased and then decreased with increasing mean annual temperature (MAT) and mean annual precipitation (MAP). Stepwise regression analyses further indicated that leaf length variation was mainly affected by latitude. However, leaf width was uncorrelated with altitude, MAT, or MAP. The common garden trial showed that leaf width variation among the eastern populations was caused by both local adaptation and phenotypic plasticity. Our findings suggest that R. soongarica preferentially changes leaf length to adjust leaf size to cope with environmental change. We also reveal phenotypic evidence for ecological speciation of R. soongarica. These results will help us better understand and predict the consequences of climate change for desert ecosystem functioning.

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Plant traits inform predictions of tundra responses to global change

Cited by 86 publications

References 61 publications

Light and warming drive forest understorey community development in different environments

Light and warming drive forest understorey community development in different environments

Woody plant encroachment intensifies under climate change across tundra and savanna biomes

Leaf size variations in a dominant desert shrub, Reaumuria soongarica, adapted to heterogeneous environments

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