Plant specialisation may limit climate‐induced vegetation change to within topographic and edaphic niches on a sub‐Antarctic island ...

• Main Authors: Cramer, Michael, Hedding, David, Greve, Michelle, Midgley, Guy, Ripley, Brad
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2022
• Subjects: Climate change; range shift; niche specificity; Marion Island; species distribution models; FOS: Biological sciences; Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics; Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.stqjq2c5z; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.stqjq2c5z

Extreme changes in temperature, rainfall and wind regimes have been correlated with plant species range expansion upslope on sub-Antarctic islands. Ongoing climatic changes are expected to continue driving changes in species distributions globally, but niche specialisations may limit the capacity for range shifts. We hypothesised that non-climatic characteristics of ecological niches of vascular plant species could limit climate induced range shifts. We determined the altitudinal ranges of vascular plant species (n=13) on sub-Antarctic Marion Island and measured air temperature, topographic, foliar and soil properties along transects on geologically distinct substrates. Climatic and non-climatic associations were determined using multiple linear regression and boosted regression tree (BRT) analyses. The degree of niche specialisation was determined using outlying mean index analysis (OMI) within the range of species on the island. Several species (7 of 13) exhibited niche-specialisation. Correlation analysis ...