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Few changes in native Australian alpine plant morphology, despite substantial local climate change.

ABSTRACT: Rapid evolution is likely to be an important mechanism allowing native species to adapt to changed environmental conditions. Many Northern Hemisphere species have undergone substantial recent changes in phenology and morphology. However, we have little information about how native species in the Southern Hemisphere are responding to climate change. We used herbarium specimens from 21 native alpine plant species in Kosciuszko National Park, Australia, to make over 1,500 measurements of plant size, leaf thickness, leaf mass per area, leaf shape, and leaf size across the last 126 years. Only two out of 21 species (9%) showed significant changes in any of the measured traits. The number of changes we observed was not significantly different to what we would expect by chance alone, based on the number of analyses performed. This lack of change is not attributable to methodology-an earlier study using the same methods found significant changes in 70% of species introduced to southeast Australia. Australia's native alpine plants do not appear to be adapting to changed conditions, and because of the low elevation of Australia's mountains, they do not have much scope for uphill migration. Thus, our findings suggest that Australia's native alpine plants are at even greater risk in the face of future climate change than was previously understood.

SUBMITTER: Sritharan MS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8093687 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Global change is modifying species communities from local to landscape scales, with alterations in the abiotic and biotic determinants of geographic range limits causing species range shifts along both latitudinal and elevational gradients. An important but often overlooked component of global change is the effect of anthropogenic disturbance, and how it interacts with the effects of climate to affect both species and communities, as well as interspecies interactions, such as facilitation and competition. We examined the effects of frequent human trampling disturbances on alpine plant communities in Switzerland, focusing on the elevational range of the widely distributed cushion plant Silene acaulis and the interactions of this facilitator species with other plants. Examining size distributions and densities, we found that disturbance appears to favor individual Silene growth at middle elevations. However, it has negative effects at the population level, as evidenced by a reduction in population density and reproductive indices. Disturbance synergistically interacts with the effects of elevation to reduce species richness at low and high elevations, an effect not mitigated by Silene. In fact, we find predominantly competitive interactions, both by Silene on its hosted and neighboring species and by neighboring (but not hosted) species on Silene. Our results indicate that disturbance can be beneficial for Silene individual performance, potentially through changes in its neighboring species community. However, possible reduced recruitment in disturbed areas could eventually lead to population declines. While other studies have shown that light to moderate disturbances can maintain high species diversity, our results emphasize that heavier disturbance reduces species richness, diversity, as well as percent cover, and adversely affects cushion plants and that these effects are not substantially reduced by plant-plant interactions. Heavily disturbed alpine systems could therefore be at greater risk for upward encroachment of lower elevation species in a warming world.

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Few changes in native Australian alpine plant morphology, despite substantial local climate change.

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