Search

Global change is predicted to cause shifts in species distributions and biodiversity in arctic tundra. We applied factorial warming and nutrient manipulation to a nutrient and species poor alpine/arctic heath community for seven years. Vascular plant abundance in control plots increased by 31%. There were also notable changes in cover in the nutrient and combined nutrient and warming treatments, with deciduous and evergreen shrubs declining, grasses overgrowing these plots. Sedge abundance initially increased significantly with nutrient amendment and then declined, going below initial values in the combined nutrient and warming treatment. Nutrient addition resulted in a change in dominance hierarchy from deciduous shrubs to grasses. We found significant declines in vascular plant diversity and evenness in the warming treatment and a decline in diversity in the combined warming and nutrient addition treatment, while nutrient addition caused a decline in species richness. The results give some experimental support that species poor plant communities with low diversity may be more vulnerable to loss of species diversity than communities with higher initial diversity. The projected increase in nutrient deposition and warming may therefore have negative impacts on ecosystem processes, functioning and services due to loss of species diversity in an already impoverished environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Premise: Climate change is having major impacts on alpine and arctic regions, and inter-annual variations in temperature are likely to increase. How increased climate variability will impact plant reproduction is unclear., Methods: In a 4-year study on fruit production by an alpine plant community in northern Sweden, we applied three warming regimes: (1) a static level of warming with open-top chambers (OTC), (2) press warming, a yearly stepwise increase in warming, and (3) pulse warming, a single-year pulse event of higher warming. We analyzed the relationship between fruit production and monthly temperatures during the budding period, fruiting period, and whole fruit production period and the effect of winter and summer precipitation on fruit production., Results: Year and treatment had a significant effect on total fruit production by evergreen shrubs, Cassiope tetragona, and Dryas octopetala, with large variations between treatments and years. Year, but not treatment, had a significant effect on deciduous shrubs and graminoids, both of which increased fruit production over the 4 years, while forbs were negatively affected by the press warming, but not by year. Fruit production was influenced by ambient temperature during the previous-year budding period, current-year fruiting period, and whole fruit production period. Minimum and average temperatures were more important than maximum temperature. In general, fruit production was negatively correlated with increased precipitation., Conclusions: These results indicate that predicted increased climate variability and increased precipitation due to climate change may affect plant reproductive output and long-term community dynamics in alpine meadow communities., (© 2021 The Authors. American Journal of Botany published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Botanical Society of America.)