Colonization and extinction lags drive non‐linear responses to warming in mountain plant communities across the Northern Hemisphere

Global warming is changing plant communities due to the arrival of new species from warmer regions and declining abundance of cold‐adapted species. However, experimentally testing predictions about trajectories and rates of community change is challenging because we normally lack an expectation for future community composition, and most warming experiments fail to incorporate colonization by novel species. To address these issues, we analyzed data from 44 whole‐community transplant experiments along 22 elevational gradients across the Northern Hemisphere. In these experiments, high‐elevation communities were transplanted to lower elevations to simulate warming, while also removing dispersal barriers for lower‐elevation species to establish. We quantified the extent and pace at which warmed high‐elevation communities shifted towards the taxonomic composition of lower elevation communities. High‐elevation plant communities converged towards the composition of low‐elevation communities, with higher rates under stronger experimental warming. Strong community shifts occurred in the first year after transplantation then slowed over time, such that communities remained distinct from both origin and destination control by the end of the experimental periods (3‐9 years). Changes were driven to a similar extent by both new species colonization and abundance shifts of high‐elevation species, but with substantial variation across experiments that could be partly explained by the magnitude and duration of experimental warming, plot size and functional traits. Our macroecological approach reveals that while warmed high‐elevation communities increasingly resemble communities at lower elevations today, the slow pace of taxonomic shifts implies considerable colonization and extinction lags, where a novel taxonomic composition of both low‐ and high‐elevation species could coexist for long periods of time. The important contribution of the colonizing species to community change also indicates that once dispersal barriers are overcome, warmed high‐elevation communities are vulnerable to encroachment from lower elevation species.

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Publication Details

Journal
Ecography
Published
2024-11-20
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.07378
Citations
7
Primary Topic
Species Distribution and Climate Change
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
6.44
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article

Colonization and extinction lags drive non‐linear responses to warming in mountain plant communities across the Northern Hemisphere

Paul Kardol, Aud H. Halbritter, Lisa J. Rew, Richard J. Telford et al.
7 citations
Ecography
Species Distribution and Climate Change
6.44
article

Colonization and extinction lags drive non‐linear responses to warming in mountain plant communities across the Northern Hemisphere

Paul Kardol, Aud H. Halbritter, Lisa J. Rew, Richard J. Telford, Georg H. Niedrist, Joshua S. Lynn, Kari Klanderud, Susanne Lachmuth, Brian Joseph Enquist, Lorah Seltzer, Vigdis Vandvik, Fanny Dommanget, Tamara Münkemüller, Manzoor A. Shah, David A. Wardle, Joachim Töpper, Renaud Jaunatre, Anke Jentsch, Tim Seipel, Sebastián Block, Sylvia Haider, Tom W. N. Walker, Dagmar Egelkraut, Peter Wolff, Jake M. Alexander, Hanna Nomoto, Deborah E. Goldberg, Billur Bektaş, Chelsea Chisholm, Thomas Deola, Shiping Wang, Yongtao He, Grégory Loucougaray, Yan Yang
article en
7 citations

Abstract

Global warming is changing plant communities due to the arrival of new species from warmer regions and declining abundance of cold‐adapted species. However, experimentally testing predictions about trajectories and rates of community change is challenging because we normally lack an expectation for future community composition, and most warming experiments fail to incorporate colonization by novel species. To address these issues, we analyzed data from 44 whole‐community transplant experiments along 22 elevational gradients across the Northern Hemisphere. In these experiments, high‐elevation communities were transplanted to lower elevations to simulate warming, while also removing dispersal barriers for lower‐elevation species to establish. We quantified the extent and pace at which warmed high‐elevation communities shifted towards the taxonomic composition of lower elevation communities. High‐elevation plant communities converged towards the composition of low‐elevation communities, with higher rates under stronger experimental warming. Strong community shifts occurred in the first year after transplantation then slowed over time, such that communities remained distinct from both origin and destination control by the end of the experimental periods (3‐9 years). Changes were driven to a similar extent by both new species colonization and abundance shifts of high‐elevation species, but with substantial variation across experiments that could be partly explained by the magnitude and duration of experimental warming, plot size and functional traits. Our macroecological approach reveals that while warmed high‐elevation communities increasingly resemble communities at lower elevations today, the slow pace of taxonomic shifts implies considerable colonization and extinction lags, where a novel taxonomic composition of both low‐ and high‐elevation species could coexist for long periods of time. The important contribution of the colonizing species to community change also indicates that once dispersal barriers are overcome, warmed high‐elevation communities are vulnerable to encroachment from lower elevation species.

Ecography
Leuphana University of Lüneburg (DE), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Santa Fe Institute (US), Eurac Research (IT), University of Kashmir (IN), University of Arizona (US), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), Montana State University (US), Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research (NO), University of Manchester (GB), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SE), Yale University (US), ETH Zurich (CH), Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (FR), Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment (CN), Laboratoire d'Écologie Alpine (FR), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (CN), Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NO), Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (CN), University of Bergen (NO), University of Bayreuth (DE), Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NO), University of Neuchâtel (CH), Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (DE), Université Savoie Mont Blanc (FR), Université Grenoble Alpes (FR), Umeå University (SE)
Climate action
Openalex Percentile: Top 4%
Species Distribution and Climate Change
6.44
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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