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Climate-driven range dynamics and potential current disequilibrium in Alpine vegetation
Book title (Conference Proceedings)
6th Symposium for Research in Protected Areas
Volume
6
Place of Conference
Salzburg, Austria
Year of Conference
2017
Publisher
Salzburger Nationalparkfonds
Place of Publication
Mittersill
Pages
559-560
ISSN/ISBN
978-3-7001-8317-4
Keywords
mountain, biodiversity, climate change, range shift, plants, re-survey
Abstract
Recent climate change is shifting species' elevational ranges. Yet, most research effort has concentrated on the uppermost occurrences of species and little is known about changes to species' rear edges, optima and abundances. However, only the simultaneous consideration of these range attributes allows for assessing the fate of mountain plants under climate change. Instead of using exactly localizable plots, we re-surveyed over 1500 semi-permanent historical vegetation relevés spread over the European Alps to overcome these shortages. Based on this dataset we evaluated recent range dynamics along the elevational gradient, traits associated with particular responses to climate, and the emergence of dispersal limited distribution patterns and extinction debts.
