Decreased soil moisture due to warming drives phylogenetic diversity and community transitions in the tundra
المؤلف | Scharn, Ruud |
المؤلف | Little, Chelsea J. |
المؤلف | Bacon, Christine D. |
المؤلف | Alatalo, Juha M. |
المؤلف | Antonelli, Alexandre |
المؤلف | Björkman, Mats P. |
المؤلف | Molau, Ulf |
المؤلف | Nilsson, R. Henrik |
المؤلف | Björk, Robert G. |
تاريخ الإتاحة | 2021-07-13T09:19:42Z |
تاريخ النشر | 2021-06-01 |
اسم المنشور | Environmental Research Letters |
المعرّف | http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abfe8a |
الرقم المعياري الدولي للكتاب | 17489318 |
الملخص | Global warming leads to drastic changes in the diversity and structure of Arctic plant communities. Studies of functional diversity within the Arctic tundra biome have improved our understanding of plant responses to warming. However, these studies still show substantial unexplained variation in diversity responses. Complementary to functional diversity, phylogenetic diversity has been useful in climate change studies, but has so far been understudied in the Arctic. Here, we use a 25 year warming experiment to disentangle community responses in Arctic plant phylogenetic β diversity across a soil moisture gradient. We found that responses varied over the soil moisture gradient, where meadow communities with intermediate to high soil moisture had a higher magnitude of response. Warming had a negative effect on soil moisture levels in all meadow communities, however meadows with intermediate moisture levels were more sensitive. In these communities, soil moisture loss was associated with earlier snowmelt, resulting in community turnover towards a more heath-like community. This process of 'heathification' in the intermediate moisture meadows was driven by the expansion of ericoid and Betula shrubs. In contrast, under a more consistent water supply Salix shrub abundance increased in wet meadows. Due to its lower stature, palatability and decomposability, the increase in heath relative to meadow vegetation can have several large scale effects on the local food web as well as climate. Our study highlights the importance of the hydrological cycle as a driver of vegetation turnover in response to Arctic climate change. The observed patterns in phylogenetic β diversity were often driven by contrasting responses of species of the same functional growth form, and could thus provide important complementary information. Thus, phylogenetic diversity is an important tool in disentangling tundra response to environmental change. |
راعي المشروع | This study was supported by The Swedish Research Council FORMAS (No. 942-2015-1382 to RGB and 2016-01187 to MPB), The Swedish Research Council (No. 621-2014-5315 to RGB and No. 2015-04857 to AA), the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement (No: 657627 to MPB), BECC—Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (AA), the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (AA), Qatar Petroleum (JMA), and Carl Tryggers Stiftelse för Vetenskaplig Forskning (JMA and MPB). |
اللغة | en |
الناشر | IOP Publishing |
الموضوع | Arctic tundra biodiversity long-term warming phylogenetic diversity shrubification soil moisture vegetation change |
النوع | Other |
رقم العدد | 6 |
رقم المجلد | 16 |
ESSN | 1748-9326 |
الملفات في هذه التسجيلة
هذه التسجيلة تظهر في المجموعات التالية
-
مجموعة علوم الأرض [213 items ]