Treeline Ecotones

• Main Author: Elliott, Grant P.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Wiley 2017
• Subjects: Arctic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118786352.wbieg0539; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2F9781118786352.wbieg0539; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9781118786352.wbieg0539

An ecotone is a boundary or transition zone between types of vegetation or biomes that is bracketed by more homogeneous types. Ecotones are created by environmental gradients that ultimately govern the physiological and reproductive range limits of species from adjacent ecosystems. On a global scale the most prominent and well‐studied ecotones are those between forests and lower‐stature vegetation in the Arctic, on mountains, and across savannas. The history of treeline research is rich with examples of terminological misunderstanding and issues of spatial scale. Given the relatively high levels of stress imposed on species growing at or near the edge of what may be referred to as their bioclimatic envelope, the dynamics of ecotone boundaries are widely considered to be sensitive proxies for climate variability, especially for warming at arctic and alpine treelines. Savanna ecotones present a contrast in that indirect processes such as fire complicate the environmental gradient.