Changes in plant community composition lag behind climate warming in lowland forests
Changes in plant community composition lag behind climate warming in lowland forests
复制标题
DOI：
10.1038/nature10548
复制
发表时间：
2011-11-24
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Gegout, Jean-Claude
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bertrand, Romain;Lenoir, Jonathan;Gegout, Jean-Claude
气候变化正在推动全球物种分布的纬度和海拔变化(1,2)，从而产生新的物种组合(3,4)。据报道，植物和动物的这些生物反应与当代气候变化之间存在滞后(5)。从理论上讲，这些滞后的幅度在低地地区应该是最大的，那里气候变化的速度预计比高地地区快得多(6)。我们将法国 44 年期间（1965-2008 年）的温度趋势与根据植物组合重建的温度（在 76,634 次调查中观察到）进行了比较。在这里，我们报告说，在高地地区（海拔500-2,600米），森林植物群落对1.07摄氏度的有效上升趋势做出了0.54摄氏度的反应，而在低地地区，森林植物群落对1.11摄氏度的变暖趋势仅做出了0.02摄氏度的反应。低地森林的气候和植物群落组成之间存在比高地森林更大的温度滞后（3.1倍）。造成这种差异的原因在于，与高地和森林相比，低地具有以下特性：随着气候变暖，具有更强局部持久能力的物种比例更高(7)，短距离逃逸的机会减少(8,9)，以及栖息地破碎化程度更大。尽管山区目前被认为是受气候变化威胁最严重的生态系统之一（由于山顶灭绝），但目前低地森林植物群落的惯性也应该引起注意，因为它可能导致低地生物消耗(10)。
Climate change is driving latitudinal and altitudinal shifts in species distribution worldwide(1,2), leading to novel species assemblages(3,4). Lags between these biotic responses and contemporary climate changes have been reported for plants and animals(5). Theoretically, the magnitude of these lags should be greatest in lowland areas, where the velocity of climate change is expected to be much greater than that in highland areas(6). We compared temperature trends to temperatures reconstructed from plant assemblages (observed in 76,634 surveys) over a 44-year period in France (1965-2008). Here we report that forest plant communities had responded to 0.54 degrees C of the effective increase of 1.07 degrees C in highland areas (500-2,600 m above sea level), while they had responded to only 0.02 degrees C of the 1.11 degrees C warming trend in lowland areas. There was a larger temperature lag (by 3.1 times) between the climate and plant community composition in lowland forests than in highland forests. The explanation of such disparity lies in the following properties of lowland, as compared to highland, forests: the higher proportion of species with greater ability for local persistence as the climate warms(7), the reduced opportunity for short-distance escapes(8,9), and the greater habitat fragmentation. Although mountains are currently considered to be among the ecosystems most threatened by climate change (owing to mountaintop extinction), the current inertia of plant communities in lowland forests should also be noted, as it could lead to lowland biotic attrition(10).