Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems
Enhanced shrub growth and expansion are widespread responses to climate warming in many arctic and alpine ecosystems. Warmer temperatures and shrub expansion could cause major changes in plant community structure, affecting both species composition and diversity. To improve our understanding of the...
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ftunivudineiris:oai:air.uniud.it:11390/1131972 2023-07-30T04:01:59+02:00 Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems Boscutti, Francesco Casolo, Valentino Beraldo, Paola Braidot, Enrico Zancani, Marco Rixen, Christian Boscutti, Francesco Casolo, Valentino Beraldo, Paola Braidot, Enrico Zancani, Marco Rixen, Christian 2018 ELETTRONICO http://hdl.handle.net/11390/1131972 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196653 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0196653&type=printable eng eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/wos/WOS:000431007600113 volume:13 issue:4 firstpage:Article number e0196653 journal:PLOS ONE http://hdl.handle.net/11390/1131972 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0196653 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/scopus/2-s2.0-85046039053 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0196653&type=printable info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology (all) Agricultural and Biological Sciences (all) info:eu-repo/semantics/article 2018 ftunivudineiris https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196653 2023-07-18T20:15:41Z Enhanced shrub growth and expansion are widespread responses to climate warming in many arctic and alpine ecosystems. Warmer temperatures and shrub expansion could cause major changes in plant community structure, affecting both species composition and diversity. To improve our understanding of the ongoing changes in plant communities in alpine tundra, we studied interrelations among climate, shrub growth, shrub cover and plant diversity, using an elevation gradient as a proxy for climate conditions. Specifically, we analyzed growth of bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus L.) and its associated plant communities along an elevation gradient of ca. 600 vertical meters in the eastern European Alps. We assessed the ramet age, ring width and shoot length of V. myrtillus, and the shrub cover and plant diversity of the community. At higher elevation, ramets of V. myrtillus were younger, with shorter shoots and narrower growth rings. Shoot length was positively related to shrub cover, but shrub cover did not show a direct relationship with elevation. A greater shrub cover had a negative effect on species richness, also affecting species composition (beta-diversity), but these variables were not influenced by elevation. Our findings suggest that changes in plant diversity are driven directly by shrub cover and only indirectly by climate, here represented by changes in elevation. © 2018 Boscutti et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Tundra Università degli Studi di Udine: CINECA IRIS Arctic PLOS ONE 13 4 e0196653 |
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Open Polar |
collection |
Università degli Studi di Udine: CINECA IRIS |
op_collection_id |
ftunivudineiris |
language |
English |
topic |
Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology (all) Agricultural and Biological Sciences (all) |
spellingShingle |
Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology (all) Agricultural and Biological Sciences (all) Boscutti, Francesco Casolo, Valentino Beraldo, Paola Braidot, Enrico Zancani, Marco Rixen, Christian Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems |
topic_facet |
Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology (all) Agricultural and Biological Sciences (all) |
description |
Enhanced shrub growth and expansion are widespread responses to climate warming in many arctic and alpine ecosystems. Warmer temperatures and shrub expansion could cause major changes in plant community structure, affecting both species composition and diversity. To improve our understanding of the ongoing changes in plant communities in alpine tundra, we studied interrelations among climate, shrub growth, shrub cover and plant diversity, using an elevation gradient as a proxy for climate conditions. Specifically, we analyzed growth of bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus L.) and its associated plant communities along an elevation gradient of ca. 600 vertical meters in the eastern European Alps. We assessed the ramet age, ring width and shoot length of V. myrtillus, and the shrub cover and plant diversity of the community. At higher elevation, ramets of V. myrtillus were younger, with shorter shoots and narrower growth rings. Shoot length was positively related to shrub cover, but shrub cover did not show a direct relationship with elevation. A greater shrub cover had a negative effect on species richness, also affecting species composition (beta-diversity), but these variables were not influenced by elevation. Our findings suggest that changes in plant diversity are driven directly by shrub cover and only indirectly by climate, here represented by changes in elevation. © 2018 Boscutti et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
author2 |
Boscutti, Francesco Casolo, Valentino Beraldo, Paola Braidot, Enrico Zancani, Marco Rixen, Christian |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Boscutti, Francesco Casolo, Valentino Beraldo, Paola Braidot, Enrico Zancani, Marco Rixen, Christian |
author_facet |
Boscutti, Francesco Casolo, Valentino Beraldo, Paola Braidot, Enrico Zancani, Marco Rixen, Christian |
author_sort |
Boscutti, Francesco |
title |
Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems |
title_short |
Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems |
title_full |
Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems |
title_fullStr |
Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems |
title_full_unstemmed |
Shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: Evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems |
title_sort |
shrub growth and plant diversity along an elevation gradient: evidence of indirect effects of climate on alpine ecosystems |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/11390/1131972 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196653 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0196653&type=printable |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Tundra |
genre_facet |
Arctic Tundra |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/wos/WOS:000431007600113 volume:13 issue:4 firstpage:Article number e0196653 journal:PLOS ONE http://hdl.handle.net/11390/1131972 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0196653 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/scopus/2-s2.0-85046039053 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0196653&type=printable |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196653 |
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PLOS ONE |
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13 |
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