Drought sensitivity of Empetrum nigrum shrub growth at the species’ southern lowland distribution range margin ...

The ongoing warming of the Earth’s atmosphere is projected to cause a northward shift of species’ distributions, as they track their climatic optimum. In the rapidly warming Arctic, this has already led to an increase of shrubs in tundra ecosystems. While this northern expansion of woody biomass has...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Weijers, Stef, Hein, Nils, Merkelbach, Julia, Zech, Katharina
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: Dryad 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j3tx95xch
https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.j3tx95xch
Description
Summary:The ongoing warming of the Earth’s atmosphere is projected to cause a northward shift of species’ distributions, as they track their climatic optimum. In the rapidly warming Arctic, this has already led to an increase of shrubs in tundra ecosystems. While this northern expansion of woody biomass has been studied relatively extensively over the last decade, little research has been devoted to shrub growth responses at the southern margins of Northern Hemisphere shrubs. Here, we studied shoot length growth, its responses to climate over the period 2010-2017, and differences in leaf C and N content of the evergreen dwarf shrub Empetrum nigrum, as well as the vegetation composition and soil parameters at four sites located along a gradient of increasing dune age on the island Spiekeroog, northern Germany. The sites are located in the tri-national UNESCO world heritage site, the Wadden Sea. E. nigrum has a predominantly circum-arctic-boreal distribution and its southern distribution mbargin in European lowlands ... : See published article for methods: Hein et al. (2021) Drought sensitivity of Empetrum nigrum shrub growth at the species’ southern lowland distribution range margin - Plant Ecology ...