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Snow is an important control of plant community functional composition in oroarctic tundra.
Happonen, Konsta; Aalto, Juha; Kemppinen, Julia; Niittynen, Pekka; Virkkala, Anna-Maria; Luoto, Miska.
Afiliación
  • Happonen K; Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. konsta.happonen@helsinki.fi.
  • Aalto J; Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
  • Kemppinen J; Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
  • Niittynen P; Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
  • Virkkala AM; Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
  • Luoto M; Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
Oecologia ; 191(3): 601-608, 2019 Nov.
Article en En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31522244
The functional composition of plant communities is a critical modulator of climate change impacts on ecosystems, but it is not a simple function of regional climate. In the Arctic tundra, where climate change is proceeding the most rapidly, communities have not shifted their trait composition as predicted by spatial temperature-trait relationships. Important causal pathways are thus missing from models of trait composition change. Here, we study causes of plant community functional variation in an oroarctic tundra landscape in Kilpisjärvi, Finland. We consider the community-weighted means of plant vegetative height, as well as two traits related to the leaf economic spectrum. Specifically, we model their responses to locally measured summer air temperature, snow conditions, and soil resource levels. For each of the traits, we also quantify the importance of intraspecific trait variation (ITV) for between-community functional differences and trait-environment matching. Our study shows that in a tundra landscape (1) snow is the most influential abiotic variable affecting functional composition, (2) vegetation height is under weak local environmental control, whereas leaf economics is under strong local environmental control, (3) the relative magnitude of ITV differs between traits, and (4) ITV is not very consequential for community-level trait-environment relationships. Our analyses highlight the importance of winter conditions for community functional composition in seasonal areas. We show that winter climate change can either amplify or counter the effects summer warming, depending on the trait.
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Texto completo: 1 Colección: 01-internacional Base de datos: MEDLINE Asunto principal: Nieve / Ecosistema Tipo de estudio: Prognostic_studies País/Región como asunto: Europa Idioma: En Revista: Oecologia Año: 2019 Tipo del documento: Article País de afiliación: Finlandia Pais de publicación: Alemania
Texto completo
Añadir a Mi BVS
Imprimir
XML
PubMed Links
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Texto completo: 1 Colección: 01-internacional Base de datos: MEDLINE Asunto principal: Nieve / Ecosistema Tipo de estudio: Prognostic_studies País/Región como asunto: Europa Idioma: En Revista: Oecologia Año: 2019 Tipo del documento: Article País de afiliación: Finlandia Pais de publicación: Alemania