Local topography is more important than climate as a determinant of regional alpine plant diversity in southwestern British Columbia
Mountain ecosystems are considered highly sensitive to the impacts of climate change, and are experiencing a magnitude of change that far exceeds global averages, particularly with respect to increases in average temperature and precipitation. As such, scientists are predicting a rapid habitat reduc...
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ftuvicpubl:oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/4246 2023-05-15T15:15:26+02:00 Local topography is more important than climate as a determinant of regional alpine plant diversity in southwestern British Columbia Baldwin-Corriveau, Katharine Starzomski, Brian M. [2012] application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/1828/4246 English en eng http://hdl.handle.net/1828/4246 Available to the World Wide Web community ecology plant ecology species diversity determinants of diversity climate change Thesis 2012 ftuvicpubl 2022-05-19T06:13:47Z Mountain ecosystems are considered highly sensitive to the impacts of climate change, and are experiencing a magnitude of change that far exceeds global averages, particularly with respect to increases in average temperature and precipitation. As such, scientists are predicting a rapid habitat reduction or even the loss of the coolest climatic alpine zones, thus threatening the continued survival of high elevation specialists. However, many of these ‘doomsday’ predictions are based primarily on models with coarse-resolution changes to atmospheric climate parameters, and do not take into account the potential buffering effects of other environmental gradients known to structure alpine plant communities, related to topography and soils. To assess the accuracy of predictions regarding the state of vulnerability of alpine plant communities to climate change, this thesis examined the relative importance of climate, topography and soils as determinants of regional alpine plant diversity for all species, as well as for forbs, graminoids and woody species separately, in alpine meadows of southwestern British Columbia. Through redundancy analyses and variation partitioning, results show that topography and soils are more important than climate as determinants of regional alpine plant diversity. Within these groups, elevation, slope, soil moisture and mean summer temperature were most significant. Interestingly, precipitation played only a small role, even though the study area spanned a precipitation gradient of over 1200 mm/year. The stronger influence of temperature, especially for woody species beta diversity, supports findings of shrub expansion in arctic-alpine systems. The lower importance of climate as a determinant of regional alpine plant diversity, especially for forbs, the dominant life form in alpine meadow ecosystems, suggests that these productive environments may be more resilient to on-going changes in atmospheric climate conditions than previously believed. Graduate Thesis Arctic Climate change University of Victoria (Canada): UVicDSpace Arctic |
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Open Polar |
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University of Victoria (Canada): UVicDSpace |
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ftuvicpubl |
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English |
topic |
community ecology plant ecology species diversity determinants of diversity climate change |
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community ecology plant ecology species diversity determinants of diversity climate change Baldwin-Corriveau, Katharine Local topography is more important than climate as a determinant of regional alpine plant diversity in southwestern British Columbia |
topic_facet |
community ecology plant ecology species diversity determinants of diversity climate change |
description |
Mountain ecosystems are considered highly sensitive to the impacts of climate change, and are experiencing a magnitude of change that far exceeds global averages, particularly with respect to increases in average temperature and precipitation. As such, scientists are predicting a rapid habitat reduction or even the loss of the coolest climatic alpine zones, thus threatening the continued survival of high elevation specialists. However, many of these ‘doomsday’ predictions are based primarily on models with coarse-resolution changes to atmospheric climate parameters, and do not take into account the potential buffering effects of other environmental gradients known to structure alpine plant communities, related to topography and soils. To assess the accuracy of predictions regarding the state of vulnerability of alpine plant communities to climate change, this thesis examined the relative importance of climate, topography and soils as determinants of regional alpine plant diversity for all species, as well as for forbs, graminoids and woody species separately, in alpine meadows of southwestern British Columbia. Through redundancy analyses and variation partitioning, results show that topography and soils are more important than climate as determinants of regional alpine plant diversity. Within these groups, elevation, slope, soil moisture and mean summer temperature were most significant. Interestingly, precipitation played only a small role, even though the study area spanned a precipitation gradient of over 1200 mm/year. The stronger influence of temperature, especially for woody species beta diversity, supports findings of shrub expansion in arctic-alpine systems. The lower importance of climate as a determinant of regional alpine plant diversity, especially for forbs, the dominant life form in alpine meadow ecosystems, suggests that these productive environments may be more resilient to on-going changes in atmospheric climate conditions than previously believed. Graduate |
author2 |
Starzomski, Brian M. |
format |
Thesis |
author |
Baldwin-Corriveau, Katharine |
author_facet |
Baldwin-Corriveau, Katharine |
author_sort |
Baldwin-Corriveau, Katharine |
title |
Local topography is more important than climate as a determinant of regional alpine plant diversity in southwestern British Columbia |
title_short |
Local topography is more important than climate as a determinant of regional alpine plant diversity in southwestern British Columbia |
title_full |
Local topography is more important than climate as a determinant of regional alpine plant diversity in southwestern British Columbia |
title_fullStr |
Local topography is more important than climate as a determinant of regional alpine plant diversity in southwestern British Columbia |
title_full_unstemmed |
Local topography is more important than climate as a determinant of regional alpine plant diversity in southwestern British Columbia |
title_sort |
local topography is more important than climate as a determinant of regional alpine plant diversity in southwestern british columbia |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/1828/4246 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Climate change |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change |
op_relation |
http://hdl.handle.net/1828/4246 |
op_rights |
Available to the World Wide Web |
_version_ |
1766345792039157760 |