Site fertility drives temporal turnover of vegetation at high latitudes
Experimental evidence shows that site fertility is a key modulator underlying plant community changes under climate change. Communities on fertile sites, with species having fast dynamics, have been found to react more strongly to climate change than communities on infertile sites with slow dynamics...
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ftunivhelsihelda:oai:helda.helsinki.fi:10138/308613 2024-01-07T09:47:08+01:00 Site fertility drives temporal turnover of vegetation at high latitudes Maliniemi, Tuija Happonen, Konsta Virtanen, Risto Department of Geosciences and Geography Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS) Kilpisjärvi Biological Station 2019-12-19T12:54:02Z 12 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/10138/308613 eng eng Wiley 10.1002/ece3.5778 Maliniemi , T , Happonen , K & Virtanen , R 2019 , ' Site fertility drives temporal turnover of vegetation at high latitudes ' , Ecology and Evolution , no. 9 , pp. 13255–13266 . https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5778 RIS: urn:2A2808E36EAE8E563047A0ED72BC1495 de6b0d99-7123-4b0a-8e41-1b19910d837a http://hdl.handle.net/10138/308613 000492966100001 cc_by openAccess info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess 1181 Ecology evolutionary biology community stability dynamic macroecology long-term research plant community plant strategies site fertility vegetation resurvey FLORA CLIMATE-CHANGE HOMOGENIZATION TUNDRA FORESTS RESPONSES PLANT-COMMUNITIES BRYOPHYTES NITROGEN DEPOSITION RESISTANCE Article draft 2019 ftunivhelsihelda 2023-12-14T00:05:00Z Experimental evidence shows that site fertility is a key modulator underlying plant community changes under climate change. Communities on fertile sites, with species having fast dynamics, have been found to react more strongly to climate change than communities on infertile sites with slow dynamics. However, it is still unclear whether this generally applies to high-latitude plant communities in natural environments at broad spatial scales. We tested a hypothesis that vegetation of fertile sites experiences greater changes over several decades and thus would be more responsive under contemporary climate change compared to infertile sites that are expected to show more resistance. We resurveyed understorey communities (vascular plants, bryophytes, and lichens) of four infertile and four fertile forest sites along a latitudinal bioclimatic gradient. Sites had remained outside direct human disturbance. We analyzed the magnitude of temporal community turnover, changes in the abundances of plant morphological groups and strategy classes, and changes in species diversity. In agreement with our hypothesis, temporal turnover of communities was consistently greater on fertile sites compared to infertile sites. However, our results suggest that the larger turnover of fertile communities is not primarily related to the direct effects of climatic warming. Furthermore, community changes in both fertile and infertile sites showed remarkable variation in terms of shares of plant functional groups and strategy classes and measures of species diversity. This further emphasizes the essential role of baseline environmental conditions and nonclimatic drivers underlying vegetation changes. Our results show that site fertility is a key determinant of the overall rate of high-latitude vegetation changes but the composition of plant communities in different ecological contexts is variously impacted by nonclimatic drivers over time. Peer reviewed Article in Journal/Newspaper Tundra HELDA – University of Helsinki Open Repository Ecology and Evolution 9 23 13255 13266 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
HELDA – University of Helsinki Open Repository |
op_collection_id |
ftunivhelsihelda |
language |
English |
topic |
1181 Ecology evolutionary biology community stability dynamic macroecology long-term research plant community plant strategies site fertility vegetation resurvey FLORA CLIMATE-CHANGE HOMOGENIZATION TUNDRA FORESTS RESPONSES PLANT-COMMUNITIES BRYOPHYTES NITROGEN DEPOSITION RESISTANCE |
spellingShingle |
1181 Ecology evolutionary biology community stability dynamic macroecology long-term research plant community plant strategies site fertility vegetation resurvey FLORA CLIMATE-CHANGE HOMOGENIZATION TUNDRA FORESTS RESPONSES PLANT-COMMUNITIES BRYOPHYTES NITROGEN DEPOSITION RESISTANCE Maliniemi, Tuija Happonen, Konsta Virtanen, Risto Site fertility drives temporal turnover of vegetation at high latitudes |
topic_facet |
1181 Ecology evolutionary biology community stability dynamic macroecology long-term research plant community plant strategies site fertility vegetation resurvey FLORA CLIMATE-CHANGE HOMOGENIZATION TUNDRA FORESTS RESPONSES PLANT-COMMUNITIES BRYOPHYTES NITROGEN DEPOSITION RESISTANCE |
description |
Experimental evidence shows that site fertility is a key modulator underlying plant community changes under climate change. Communities on fertile sites, with species having fast dynamics, have been found to react more strongly to climate change than communities on infertile sites with slow dynamics. However, it is still unclear whether this generally applies to high-latitude plant communities in natural environments at broad spatial scales. We tested a hypothesis that vegetation of fertile sites experiences greater changes over several decades and thus would be more responsive under contemporary climate change compared to infertile sites that are expected to show more resistance. We resurveyed understorey communities (vascular plants, bryophytes, and lichens) of four infertile and four fertile forest sites along a latitudinal bioclimatic gradient. Sites had remained outside direct human disturbance. We analyzed the magnitude of temporal community turnover, changes in the abundances of plant morphological groups and strategy classes, and changes in species diversity. In agreement with our hypothesis, temporal turnover of communities was consistently greater on fertile sites compared to infertile sites. However, our results suggest that the larger turnover of fertile communities is not primarily related to the direct effects of climatic warming. Furthermore, community changes in both fertile and infertile sites showed remarkable variation in terms of shares of plant functional groups and strategy classes and measures of species diversity. This further emphasizes the essential role of baseline environmental conditions and nonclimatic drivers underlying vegetation changes. Our results show that site fertility is a key determinant of the overall rate of high-latitude vegetation changes but the composition of plant communities in different ecological contexts is variously impacted by nonclimatic drivers over time. Peer reviewed |
author2 |
Department of Geosciences and Geography Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS) Kilpisjärvi Biological Station |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Maliniemi, Tuija Happonen, Konsta Virtanen, Risto |
author_facet |
Maliniemi, Tuija Happonen, Konsta Virtanen, Risto |
author_sort |
Maliniemi, Tuija |
title |
Site fertility drives temporal turnover of vegetation at high latitudes |
title_short |
Site fertility drives temporal turnover of vegetation at high latitudes |
title_full |
Site fertility drives temporal turnover of vegetation at high latitudes |
title_fullStr |
Site fertility drives temporal turnover of vegetation at high latitudes |
title_full_unstemmed |
Site fertility drives temporal turnover of vegetation at high latitudes |
title_sort |
site fertility drives temporal turnover of vegetation at high latitudes |
publisher |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10138/308613 |
genre |
Tundra |
genre_facet |
Tundra |
op_relation |
10.1002/ece3.5778 Maliniemi , T , Happonen , K & Virtanen , R 2019 , ' Site fertility drives temporal turnover of vegetation at high latitudes ' , Ecology and Evolution , no. 9 , pp. 13255–13266 . https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5778 RIS: urn:2A2808E36EAE8E563047A0ED72BC1495 de6b0d99-7123-4b0a-8e41-1b19910d837a http://hdl.handle.net/10138/308613 000492966100001 |
op_rights |
cc_by openAccess info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
container_title |
Ecology and Evolution |
container_volume |
9 |
container_issue |
23 |
container_start_page |
13255 |
op_container_end_page |
13266 |
_version_ |
1787429111817306112 |