Data from: The importance of biotic filtering on boreal conifer recruitment at alpine treeline ...

Treeline, the ecotone where forest transitions to alpine or tundra ecosystems, is considered the thermal limit to tree growth and survival. Despite temperature increases across mountainous areas and high latitudes globally, there has been no ubiquitous change in treeline position. The process of ran...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Crofts, Anna L., Brown, Carissa D.
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: Dryad 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9p8cz8wcg
https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.9p8cz8wcg
Description
Summary:Treeline, the ecotone where forest transitions to alpine or tundra ecosystems, is considered the thermal limit to tree growth and survival. Despite temperature increases across mountainous areas and high latitudes globally, there has been no ubiquitous change in treeline position. The process of range expansion must initially depend on increased recruitment at, or beyond current range limits and recruitment limitations have been hypothesized as a mechanism for the variable response of treeline position to climate warming. We conducted a unique series of observational and experimental studies to quantify early-life stage constraints, from seed production to seedling establishment, on black spruce (Picea mariana) and tamarack (Larix laricina) recruitment at a model alpine treeline in Newfoundland, Canada. We found recruitment at treeline to be simultaneously seed and establishment limited. The treeline population produced fewer seeds than the forest population and black spruce seeds produced at treeline were ... : Please refer to the Methods section of the associated paper. ...