Abstract:
Current rates of climate change are exceeding the capacity of many plant species to track climate, thus leading communities to be in disequilibrium with climatic conditions. Plant canopies can contribute to this disequilibrium by buffering macro-climatic conditions and sheltering poorly adapted species to the oncoming climate, particularly in their recruitment stages. Here we analyse differences in climatic disequilibrium between understorey and open ground woody plant recruits in 28 localities, covering more than 100,000 m2 , across an elevation range embedding temperature and aridity gradients in the southern Iberian Peninsula. This study demonstrates higher climatic disequilibrium under canopies compared with open ground, supporting that plant canopies would affect future community climatic lags by allowing the recruitment of less arid-adapted species in warm and dry conditions, but also it endorse that canopies could favour warm-adapted species in extremely cold environments as mountain tops, thus pre-adapting communities living in these habitats to climate change.
摘要:
当前的气候变化速度超过了许多植物物种追踪气候的能力,从而导致社区与气候条件不平衡。植物冠层可以通过缓冲宏观气候条件和庇护适应不良气候的物种来促进这种不平衡,特别是在招聘阶段。在这里,我们分析了28个地区的地下和露天木本植物新兵之间的气候不平衡差异,占地面积超过10万m2,在伊比利亚半岛南部的海拔范围内嵌入温度和干旱梯度。这项研究表明,与开阔地面相比,冠层下的气候不平衡更高,支持植物冠层将通过允许在温暖和干燥的条件下招募不太适应干旱的物种来影响未来的群落气候滞后,但它也认可,在极端寒冷的环境中,树冠可以支持适应温暖的物种,如山顶,从而使生活在这些栖息地的社区预先适应气候变化。