Anthropogenic disturbance modifies long-term changes of boreal mountain vegetation under contemporary climate warming |
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Author: | Maliniemi, Tuija1,2; Virtanen, Risto3 |
Organizations: |
1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway 2Geography Research Unit, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland 3Ecology and Genetics Research Unit, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland |
Format: | article |
Version: | published version |
Access: | open |
Online Access: | PDF Full Text (PDF, 1.8 MB) |
Persistent link: | http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi-fe2021060734475 |
Language: | English |
Published: |
John Wiley & Sons,
2021
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Publish Date: | 2021-06-07 |
Description: |
AbstractAims: Accelerating high-latitude climate warming drives shrub expansion in open landscapes and alters species distributions and compositions of plant communities. Simultaneously, various land use practices cause disturbance to the vegetation. However, not much documentation exists on how long-term intensive land use disturbance modifies high-latitude vegetation under climate warming. Here, we study how the composition of boreal mountain plant communities has changed during three decades in response to heavy land use disturbance, related to ski resort construction and management, and how these changes compare to those observed in adjacent less disturbed communities. Location: Iso-Syöte, Finland. Methods: We resurveyed vegetation along four elevational gradients (240–426 m a.s.l.) on a boreal mountain in 2013–14. After the original study in 1980, half of the gradients were subjected to continuous heavy land use disturbance, while the other half remained only slightly disturbed. All the gradients experienced a similar amount of macroclimatic warming over time. We analysed temporal changes in plant group covers, species richness and species’ elevational range means in relation to disturbance levels and elevation. Results: Under slight disturbance, the cover of shrubs increased on the originally open upper slopes and elevational range means of several species shifted upward. In contrast, heavy disturbance resulted in a uniform, yet modest, shrub cover increase along the whole elevational gradient and promoted both up- and downward shifts of species. Bryophyte cover decreased considerably over time, regardless of the disturbance level. Species richness increased throughout, yet more under heavy disturbance. Conclusions: Long-term changes in boreal mountain vegetation are substantially influenced by heavy land use disturbance compared to less disturbed sites where the vegetation changes are more comparable to those expected under a warmer climate. Therefore, along with the climatic effects, land use effects on vegetation are important to consider in management actions and in projections of future vegetation. see all
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Series: |
Applied vegetation science |
ISSN: | 1402-2001 |
ISSN-E: | 1654-109X |
ISSN-L: | 1402-2001 |
Volume: | 24 |
Issue: | 2 |
Article number: | e12587 |
DOI: | 10.1111/avsc.12587 |
OADOI: | https://oadoi.org/10.1111/avsc.12587 |
Type of Publication: |
A1 Journal article – refereed |
Field of Science: |
1181 Ecology, evolutionary biology |
Subjects: | |
Funding: |
Academy of Finland (project # 259072), Finnish Cultural Foundation. |
Academy of Finland Grant Number: |
259072 |
Detailed Information: |
259072 (Academy of Finland Funding decision) |
Copyright information: |
© 2021 The Authors. Applied Vegetation Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Association for Vegetation Science. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |