FÖRÄNDRAD FJÄLLVÄRLD I ETT VARMARE KLIMAT : Analys av svensk fjällvegetation

• Main Author: Karlsmo Kindlund, Yasmine
• Format: Bachelor Thesis
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Umeå universitet, Institutionen för ekologi, miljö och geovetenskap 2020
• Subjects: Alpine vegetation; Climate change; Monitoring; Vegetation change; Scandes; Natural Sciences; Naturvetenskap; Arctic
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-167494

Higher and denser vegetation have been recorded as a response to recent climate change in alpine regions. The aim of this study was to determine if the vegetation have changed in the Scandes, by analyzing monitoring data collected between 2008-2019. The vegetation was assessed in 540 permanent study plots distributed across a gradient from the treeline to the summit in 10 mountains in the Scandes. Each mountain was inventoried twice with five years in between. I analyzed changes in abundance and maximum altitudinal range between inventories and discuss the detected changes in relation to changes in herbivore density and climate. 9 out of 37 analyzed species increased in abundance between the two inventories and no species decreased. The area has experienced warming during the last decades, but no changes in precipitation and herbivory. Most of the increasing species also have traits and distributions that would predict them to be thermophilic in these locations. I thus conclude that warming temperatures are the most likely driver of the observed changes. The observed expansion of warm-adapted species in the Scandes are expected to have a negative impact on cold-adapted species and may lead to a decrease of arctic and alpine biota in the long run. My analysis show that the analyzed monitoring data can detect vegetation changes after only five years and should therefore be a powerful tool to detect changes in a longer time span. I conclude that it would be valuable to maintain the current monitoring scheme in the future.