Cargando…
Topography modulates near-ground microclimate in the Mediterranean Fagus sylvatica treeline
Understanding processes controlling forest dynamics has become particularly important in the context of ongoing climate change, which is altering the ecological fitness and resilience of species worldwide. However, whether forest communities would be threatened by projected macroclimate change or un...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2021
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8046975/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33854197 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-87661-6 |
_version_ | 1783678947252240384 |
---|---|
author | Rita, Angelo Bonanomi, Giuliano Allevato, Emilia Borghetti, Marco Cesarano, Gaspare Mogavero, Valentina Rossi, Sergio Saulino, Luigi Zotti, Maurizio Saracino, Antonio |
author_facet | Rita, Angelo Bonanomi, Giuliano Allevato, Emilia Borghetti, Marco Cesarano, Gaspare Mogavero, Valentina Rossi, Sergio Saulino, Luigi Zotti, Maurizio Saracino, Antonio |
author_sort | Rita, Angelo |
collection | PubMed |
description | Understanding processes controlling forest dynamics has become particularly important in the context of ongoing climate change, which is altering the ecological fitness and resilience of species worldwide. However, whether forest communities would be threatened by projected macroclimate change or unaffected due to the controlling effect of local site conditions is still a matter for debate. After all, forest canopy buffer climate extremes and promote microclimatic conditions, which matters for functional plant response, and act as refugia for understory species in a changing climate. Yet precisely how microclimatic conditions change in response to climate warming will depend on the extent to which vegetation structure and local topography shape air and soil temperature. In this study, we posited that forest microclimatic buffering is sensitive to local topographic conditions and canopy cover, and using meteorological stations equipped with data-loggers we measured this effect during 1 year across a climate gradient (considering aspect as a surrogate of local topography) in a Mediterranean beech treeline growing in contrasting aspects in southern Italy. During the growing season, the below-canopy near-ground temperatures were, on average, 2.4 and 1.0 °C cooler than open-field temperatures for south and north-west aspects, respectively. Overall, the temperature offset became more negative (that is, lower under-canopy temperatures at the treeline) as the open-field temperature increased, and more positive (that is, higher under-canopy temperatures at the treeline) as the open-field temperature decreased. The buffering effect was particularly evident for the treeline on the south-facing slope, where cooling of near-ground temperature was as high as 8.6 °C for the maximum temperature (in August the offset peaked at 10 °C) and as high as 2.5 °C for the average temperature. In addition, compared to the south-facing slope, the northern site exhibited less decoupling from free-air environment conditions and low variability in microclimate trends that closely track the free-air biophysical environment. Although such a decoupling effect cannot wholly isolate forest climatic conditions from macroclimate regional variability in the south-facing treeline, it has the potential to partly offset the regional macroclimatic warming experienced in the forest understory due to anthropogenic climate change. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8046975 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-80469752021-04-15 Topography modulates near-ground microclimate in the Mediterranean Fagus sylvatica treeline Rita, Angelo Bonanomi, Giuliano Allevato, Emilia Borghetti, Marco Cesarano, Gaspare Mogavero, Valentina Rossi, Sergio Saulino, Luigi Zotti, Maurizio Saracino, Antonio Sci Rep Article Understanding processes controlling forest dynamics has become particularly important in the context of ongoing climate change, which is altering the ecological fitness and resilience of species worldwide. However, whether forest communities would be threatened by projected macroclimate change or unaffected due to the controlling effect of local site conditions is still a matter for debate. After all, forest canopy buffer climate extremes and promote microclimatic conditions, which matters for functional plant response, and act as refugia for understory species in a changing climate. Yet precisely how microclimatic conditions change in response to climate warming will depend on the extent to which vegetation structure and local topography shape air and soil temperature. In this study, we posited that forest microclimatic buffering is sensitive to local topographic conditions and canopy cover, and using meteorological stations equipped with data-loggers we measured this effect during 1 year across a climate gradient (considering aspect as a surrogate of local topography) in a Mediterranean beech treeline growing in contrasting aspects in southern Italy. During the growing season, the below-canopy near-ground temperatures were, on average, 2.4 and 1.0 °C cooler than open-field temperatures for south and north-west aspects, respectively. Overall, the temperature offset became more negative (that is, lower under-canopy temperatures at the treeline) as the open-field temperature increased, and more positive (that is, higher under-canopy temperatures at the treeline) as the open-field temperature decreased. The buffering effect was particularly evident for the treeline on the south-facing slope, where cooling of near-ground temperature was as high as 8.6 °C for the maximum temperature (in August the offset peaked at 10 °C) and as high as 2.5 °C for the average temperature. In addition, compared to the south-facing slope, the northern site exhibited less decoupling from free-air environment conditions and low variability in microclimate trends that closely track the free-air biophysical environment. Although such a decoupling effect cannot wholly isolate forest climatic conditions from macroclimate regional variability in the south-facing treeline, it has the potential to partly offset the regional macroclimatic warming experienced in the forest understory due to anthropogenic climate change. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-04-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8046975/ /pubmed/33854197 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-87661-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Rita, Angelo Bonanomi, Giuliano Allevato, Emilia Borghetti, Marco Cesarano, Gaspare Mogavero, Valentina Rossi, Sergio Saulino, Luigi Zotti, Maurizio Saracino, Antonio Topography modulates near-ground microclimate in the Mediterranean Fagus sylvatica treeline |
title | Topography modulates near-ground microclimate in the Mediterranean Fagus sylvatica treeline |
title_full | Topography modulates near-ground microclimate in the Mediterranean Fagus sylvatica treeline |
title_fullStr | Topography modulates near-ground microclimate in the Mediterranean Fagus sylvatica treeline |
title_full_unstemmed | Topography modulates near-ground microclimate in the Mediterranean Fagus sylvatica treeline |
title_short | Topography modulates near-ground microclimate in the Mediterranean Fagus sylvatica treeline |
title_sort | topography modulates near-ground microclimate in the mediterranean fagus sylvatica treeline |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8046975/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33854197 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-87661-6 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT ritaangelo topographymodulatesneargroundmicroclimateinthemediterraneanfagussylvaticatreeline AT bonanomigiuliano topographymodulatesneargroundmicroclimateinthemediterraneanfagussylvaticatreeline AT allevatoemilia topographymodulatesneargroundmicroclimateinthemediterraneanfagussylvaticatreeline AT borghettimarco topographymodulatesneargroundmicroclimateinthemediterraneanfagussylvaticatreeline AT cesaranogaspare topographymodulatesneargroundmicroclimateinthemediterraneanfagussylvaticatreeline AT mogaverovalentina topographymodulatesneargroundmicroclimateinthemediterraneanfagussylvaticatreeline AT rossisergio topographymodulatesneargroundmicroclimateinthemediterraneanfagussylvaticatreeline AT saulinoluigi topographymodulatesneargroundmicroclimateinthemediterraneanfagussylvaticatreeline AT zottimaurizio topographymodulatesneargroundmicroclimateinthemediterraneanfagussylvaticatreeline AT saracinoantonio topographymodulatesneargroundmicroclimateinthemediterraneanfagussylvaticatreeline |