Accelerated increase in plant species richness on mountain summits is linked to warming
By using a dataset of repeated plant surveys from 302 mountain summits across Europe that span 145 years of observation, Sonja Wipf et al. have been able to assess mountain biodiversity changes as a globally coherent imprint of the Anthropocene.
The authors found a continent-wide acceleration in the rate of increase in plant species richness, with five times as much species enrichment between 2007 and 2016 as fifty years ago, between 1957 and 1966.
This acceleration is strikingly synchronized with accelerated global warming and is not linked to alternative global change drivers. The accelerating increase in species richness on mountain summits across this broad spatial extent demonstrates that acceleration in climate-induced biotic change is occurring even in remote places on Earth. It has potentially far-ranging consequences not only for biodiversity, but also for ecosystem functioning and services.
Source and Reference publication
Nature Letters, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0005-6
• Accelerated increase in plant species richness on mountain summits is linked to warming (2018)
Manuel J. Steinbauer1,2*, John-Arvid Grytnes3, Gerald Jurasinski4, Aino Kulonen3,5, Jonathan Lenoir6, Harald Pauli7,8,
Christian Rixen5, Manuela Winkler7,8, Manfred Bardy-Durchhalter7,8, Elena Barni9, Anne D. Bjorkman1,10,11, Frank T. Breiner12,13, Sarah Burg5, Patryk Czortek14, Melissa A. Dawes5,13, Anna Delimat15, Stefan Dullinger16, Brigitta Erschbamer17,
Vivian A. Felde3, Olatz Fernández-Arberas18, Kjetil F. Fossheim3, Daniel Gómez-García18, Damien Georges1,19,
Erlend T. Grindrud20, Sylvia Haider11,21, Siri V. Haugum3, Hanne Henriksen20, María J. Herreros18, Bogdan Jaroszewicz14, Francesca Jaroszynska3,22, Robert Kanka23, Jutta Kapfer24, Kari Klanderud20, Ingolf Kühn11,21,25, Andrea Lamprecht7,8,
Magali Matteodo5,26, Umberto Morra di Cella27, Signe Normand1,28, Arvid Odland29, Siri L. Olsen30, Sara Palacio18,
Martina Petey27, Veronika Piscová23, Blazena Sedlakova31, Klaus Steinbauer7,8, Veronika Stöckli5,32, Jens-Christian Svenning1,28, Guido Teppa9, Jean-Paul Theurillat33,34, Pascal Vittoz26, Sarah J. Woodin22, Niklaus E. Zimmermann13,35 & Sonja Wipf5*
• Siehe auch SRF Beitrag vom 4.4.2018:
Pflanzen erobern Europas Gipfel immer schneller
Je stärker die Klimaerwärmung, desto mehr steigt die Zahl der Pflanzenarten auf Berggipfeln. Das zeigt eine neue Studie.