Both seed germination and seedling mortality increase with experimental warming and fertilization in a subarctic tundra

Climate change is expected to cause (sub)arctic plant species to move polewards to track their climatic niche. However, rapid migration requires recruitment from seed, which is rare in arctic regions where most plants reproduce vegetatively. Here, we examined whether recruitment from seed would impr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:AoB PLANTS
Main Authors: Milbau, Ann, Vandeplas, Nicolas, Kockelbergh, Fred, Nijs, Ivan
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: Oxford University Press 2017
Subjects:
Research Article
Arctic
Climate change
Subarctic
Tundra
Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5629451/
https://doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plx040
Description
Summary:Climate change is expected to cause (sub)arctic plant species to move polewards to track their climatic niche. However, rapid migration requires recruitment from seed, which is rare in arctic regions where most plants reproduce vegetatively. Here, we examined whether recruitment from seed would improve under warmer and more fertile future conditions. We found that seedling establishment was little affected by warming and fertilization, suggesting that (sub)arctic species may experience difficulties in tracking their climatic niche. Predictions of future species distributions in arctic regions solely based on abiotic factors may therefore overestimate species’ ranges.

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