The move upward of individual plant species and species richness on mountain slopes following climatic warming has been studied intensively in recent years, but downshifts resulting from climatic cooling is a subject almost new to emperical science. In this new paper, decrease in species richness and the disappearence of individual species following a relatively cold decade in the Swedish Scandes mountains is documented and discussed. During the study period 2006–2012, species richness decreased by 25–46%. The majority of lost species were those that had advanced upslope during the previous warm episode (1950–2004). Cooling since the mid-2000 and particularly the unusually short and snow-rich growth period in 2012 is believed to have caused the floristic retrogression. Taken together with extensive upshifts of many species during previous relative warm decades, recent downshifts highlight the large capability of certain alpine species to track their ecological niches as climate changes. The pivotal importance of unusually late-lying snow in 2012 suggests that snow cover phenology exerts a more direct effect on the composition of the alpine flora than ambient temperatures. onlinelibrary.wiley/doi/10.1111/j.1756-1051.2013.00229.x/abstract
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 13:34:32 +0000
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