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Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems
Enhanced shrub growth and expansion are widespread responses to climate warming in many arctic and alpine ecosystems. Warmer temperatures and shrub expansion could cause major changes in plant community structure, affecting both species composition and diversity. To improve our understanding of the...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5919657/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29698464 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196653 |
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author | Boscutti, Francesco Casolo, Valentino Beraldo, Paola Braidot, Enrico Zancani, Marco Rixen, Christian |
author_facet | Boscutti, Francesco Casolo, Valentino Beraldo, Paola Braidot, Enrico Zancani, Marco Rixen, Christian |
author_sort | Boscutti, Francesco |
collection | PubMed |
description | Enhanced shrub growth and expansion are widespread responses to climate warming in many arctic and alpine ecosystems. Warmer temperatures and shrub expansion could cause major changes in plant community structure, affecting both species composition and diversity. To improve our understanding of the ongoing changes in plant communities in alpine tundra, we studied interrelations among climate, shrub growth, shrub cover and plant diversity, using an elevation gradient as a proxy for climate conditions. Specifically, we analyzed growth of bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus L.) and its associated plant communities along an elevation gradient of ca. 600 vertical meters in the eastern European Alps. We assessed the ramet age, ring width and shoot length of V. myrtillus, and the shrub cover and plant diversity of the community. At higher elevation, ramets of V. myrtillus were younger, with shorter shoots and narrower growth rings. Shoot length was positively related to shrub cover, but shrub cover did not show a direct relationship with elevation. A greater shrub cover had a negative effect on species richness, also affecting species composition (beta-diversity), but these variables were not influenced by elevation. Our findings suggest that changes in plant diversity are driven directly by shrub cover and only indirectly by climate, here represented by changes in elevation. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5919657 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-59196572018-05-11 Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems Boscutti, Francesco Casolo, Valentino Beraldo, Paola Braidot, Enrico Zancani, Marco Rixen, Christian PLoS One Research Article Enhanced shrub growth and expansion are widespread responses to climate warming in many arctic and alpine ecosystems. Warmer temperatures and shrub expansion could cause major changes in plant community structure, affecting both species composition and diversity. To improve our understanding of the ongoing changes in plant communities in alpine tundra, we studied interrelations among climate, shrub growth, shrub cover and plant diversity, using an elevation gradient as a proxy for climate conditions. Specifically, we analyzed growth of bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus L.) and its associated plant communities along an elevation gradient of ca. 600 vertical meters in the eastern European Alps. We assessed the ramet age, ring width and shoot length of V. myrtillus, and the shrub cover and plant diversity of the community. At higher elevation, ramets of V. myrtillus were younger, with shorter shoots and narrower growth rings. Shoot length was positively related to shrub cover, but shrub cover did not show a direct relationship with elevation. A greater shrub cover had a negative effect on species richness, also affecting species composition (beta-diversity), but these variables were not influenced by elevation. Our findings suggest that changes in plant diversity are driven directly by shrub cover and only indirectly by climate, here represented by changes in elevation. Public Library of Science 2018-04-26 /pmc/articles/PMC5919657/ /pubmed/29698464 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196653 Text en © 2018 Boscutti et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Boscutti, Francesco Casolo, Valentino Beraldo, Paola Braidot, Enrico Zancani, Marco Rixen, Christian Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems |
title | Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems |
title_full | Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems |
title_fullStr | Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems |
title_full_unstemmed | Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems |
title_short | Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems |
title_sort | shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5919657/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29698464 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196653 |
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