Growth and Phenology of Three Dwarf Shrub Species in a Six-Year Soil Warming Experiment at the Alpine Treeline
Global warming can have substantial impacts on the phenological and growth patterns of alpine and Arctic species, resulting in shifts in plant community composition and ecosystem dynamics. We evaluated the effects of a six-year experimental soil warming treatment (+4°C, 2007–2012) on the phenology a...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4067323 2023-05-15T15:14:28+02:00 Growth and Phenology of Three Dwarf Shrub Species in a Six-Year Soil Warming Experiment at the Alpine Treeline Anadon-Rosell, Alba Rixen, Christian Cherubini, Paolo Wipf, Sonja Hagedorn, Frank Dawes, Melissa A. 2014-06-23 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4067323 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24956273 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100577 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24956273 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100577 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2014 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100577 2014-06-29T00:53:06Z Global warming can have substantial impacts on the phenological and growth patterns of alpine and Arctic species, resulting in shifts in plant community composition and ecosystem dynamics. We evaluated the effects of a six-year experimental soil warming treatment (+4°C, 2007–2012) on the phenology and growth of three co-dominant dwarf shrub species growing in the understory of Larix decidua and Pinus uncinata at treeline in the Swiss Alps. We monitored vegetative and reproductive phenology of Vaccinium myrtillus, Vaccinium gaultherioides and Empetrum hermaphroditum throughout the early growing season of 2012 and, following a major harvest at peak season, we measured the biomass of above-ground ramet fractions. For all six years of soil warming we measured annual shoot growth of the three species and analyzed ramet age and xylem ring width of V. myrtillus. Our results show that phenology of the three species was more influenced by snowmelt timing, and also by plot tree species (Larix or Pinus) in the case of V. myrtillus, than by soil warming. However, the warming treatment led to increased V. myrtillus total above-ground ramet biomass (+36% in 2012), especially new shoot biomass (+63% in 2012), as well as increased new shoot increment length and xylem ring width (+22% and +41%, respectively; average for 2007–2012). These results indicate enhanced overall growth of V. myrtillus under soil warming that was sustained over six years and was not caused by an extended growing period in early summer. In contrast, E. hermaphroditum only showed a positive shoot growth response to warming in 2011 (+21%), and V. gaultherioides showed no significant growth response. Our results indicate that V. myrtillus might have a competitive advantage over the less responsive co-occurring dwarf shrub species under future global warming. Text Arctic Global warming PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic PLoS ONE 9 6 e100577 |
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Research Article |
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Research Article Anadon-Rosell, Alba Rixen, Christian Cherubini, Paolo Wipf, Sonja Hagedorn, Frank Dawes, Melissa A. Growth and Phenology of Three Dwarf Shrub Species in a Six-Year Soil Warming Experiment at the Alpine Treeline |
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Research Article |
description |
Global warming can have substantial impacts on the phenological and growth patterns of alpine and Arctic species, resulting in shifts in plant community composition and ecosystem dynamics. We evaluated the effects of a six-year experimental soil warming treatment (+4°C, 2007–2012) on the phenology and growth of three co-dominant dwarf shrub species growing in the understory of Larix decidua and Pinus uncinata at treeline in the Swiss Alps. We monitored vegetative and reproductive phenology of Vaccinium myrtillus, Vaccinium gaultherioides and Empetrum hermaphroditum throughout the early growing season of 2012 and, following a major harvest at peak season, we measured the biomass of above-ground ramet fractions. For all six years of soil warming we measured annual shoot growth of the three species and analyzed ramet age and xylem ring width of V. myrtillus. Our results show that phenology of the three species was more influenced by snowmelt timing, and also by plot tree species (Larix or Pinus) in the case of V. myrtillus, than by soil warming. However, the warming treatment led to increased V. myrtillus total above-ground ramet biomass (+36% in 2012), especially new shoot biomass (+63% in 2012), as well as increased new shoot increment length and xylem ring width (+22% and +41%, respectively; average for 2007–2012). These results indicate enhanced overall growth of V. myrtillus under soil warming that was sustained over six years and was not caused by an extended growing period in early summer. In contrast, E. hermaphroditum only showed a positive shoot growth response to warming in 2011 (+21%), and V. gaultherioides showed no significant growth response. Our results indicate that V. myrtillus might have a competitive advantage over the less responsive co-occurring dwarf shrub species under future global warming. |
format |
Text |
author |
Anadon-Rosell, Alba Rixen, Christian Cherubini, Paolo Wipf, Sonja Hagedorn, Frank Dawes, Melissa A. |
author_facet |
Anadon-Rosell, Alba Rixen, Christian Cherubini, Paolo Wipf, Sonja Hagedorn, Frank Dawes, Melissa A. |
author_sort |
Anadon-Rosell, Alba |
title |
Growth and Phenology of Three Dwarf Shrub Species in a Six-Year Soil Warming Experiment at the Alpine Treeline |
title_short |
Growth and Phenology of Three Dwarf Shrub Species in a Six-Year Soil Warming Experiment at the Alpine Treeline |
title_full |
Growth and Phenology of Three Dwarf Shrub Species in a Six-Year Soil Warming Experiment at the Alpine Treeline |
title_fullStr |
Growth and Phenology of Three Dwarf Shrub Species in a Six-Year Soil Warming Experiment at the Alpine Treeline |
title_full_unstemmed |
Growth and Phenology of Three Dwarf Shrub Species in a Six-Year Soil Warming Experiment at the Alpine Treeline |
title_sort |
growth and phenology of three dwarf shrub species in a six-year soil warming experiment at the alpine treeline |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4067323 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24956273 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100577 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Global warming |
genre_facet |
Arctic Global warming |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24956273 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100577 |
op_rights |
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100577 |
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PLoS ONE |
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9 |
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6 |
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e100577 |
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1766344919837835264 |