Predicting future climate at high spatial and temporal resolution

Most studies on the biological effects of future climatic changes rely on seasonally aggregated, coarse‐resolution data. Such data mask spatial and temporal variability in microclimate driven by terrain, wind and vegetation, and ultimately bear little resemblance to the conditions that organisms experience in the wild. Here, I present the methods for providing fine‐grained, hourly and daily estimates of current and future temperature and soil moisture over decadal timescales. Observed climate data and spatially coherent probabilistic projections of daily future weather were disaggregated to hourly and used to drive empirically calibrated physical models of thermal and hydrological microclimates. Mesoclimatic effects (cold‐air drainage, coastal exposure and elevation) were determined from the coarse‐resolution climate surfaces using thin‐plate spline models with coastal exposure and elevation as predictors. Differences between micro and mesoclimate temperatures were determined from terrain, vegetation and ground properties using energy balance equations. Soil moisture was computed in a thin upper layer and an underlying deeper layer, and the exchange of water between these layers was calculated using the van Genuchten equation. Code for processing the data and running the models is provided as a series of R packages. The methods were applied to the Lizard Peninsula, United Kingdom, to provide hourly estimates of temperature (100 m grid resolution over entire area, 1 m for a selected area) for the periods 1983–2017 and 2041–2049. Results indicated that there is a fine‐resolution variability in climatic changes, driven primarily by interactions between landscape features and decadal trends in weather conditions. High‐temporal resolution extremes in conditions under future climate change were predicted to be considerably less novel than the extremes estimated using seasonally aggregated variables. The study highlights the need to more accurately estimate the future climatic conditions experienced by organisms and equips biologists with the means to do so.     

Soil heterogeneity buffers community response to climate change in species‐rich grassland

Climate change impacts on vegetation are mediated by soil processes that regulate rhizosphere water balance, nutrient dynamics, and ground‐level temperatures. For ecosystems characterized by high fine‐scale substrate heterogeneity such as grasslands on poorly developed soils, effects of climate change on plant communities may depend on substrate properties that vary at the scale of individuals (<m²), leading to fine‐scale shifts in community structure that may go undetected at larger scales. Here, we show in a long‐running climate experiment in species‐rich limestone grassland in Buxton, England (UK), that the resistance of the community to 15‐year manipulations of temperature and rainfall at the plot scale (9 m²) belies considerable community reorganization at the microsite (100 cm²) scale. In individual models of the abundance of the 25 most common species with respect to climate treatment and microsite soil depth, 13 species exhibited significant soil depth affinities, and nine of these have shifted their position along the depth gradient in response to one or more climate treatments. Estimates of species turnover across the depth gradient reviewed in relation to measurements of water potential, nitrogen supply, pH, and community biomass suggest that communities of shallow microsites are responding directly to microenvironmental changes induced by climate manipulation, while those of the deepest microsites are shifting in response to changes in competitive interference from more nutrient‐demanding species. Moreover, for several species in summer drought and winter heated treatments, climate response in deep microsites was opposite that of shallow microsites, suggesting microsite variation is contributing to community stability at the whole‐plot level. Our study thus demonstrates a strong link between community dynamics and substrate properties, and suggests ecosystems typified by fine‐scale substrate heterogeneity may possess a natural buffering capacity in the face of climate change.     

气候过渡带锐齿栎林土壤呼吸对降雨改变的响应

作为大气与陆地生态系统之间的第二大碳通量,土壤呼吸是评价陆地生态系统碳循环及碳汇能力的不确定性来源之一。降雨格局改变及其导致的土壤水分变化是调节土壤呼吸的重要驱动。气候过渡带的水热状况受全球降雨格局改变的影响更为明显,揭示该区域森林土壤呼吸对降雨改变的响应规律有助于改善碳循环模型的预测精度。然而,气候过渡区的土壤碳排放过程如何响应降雨格局改变尚不清楚。通过在亚热带-暖温带的过渡区(宝天曼)开展降雨改变实验,以阐明锐齿栎林土壤呼吸及其温度敏感性对降雨增加(50%)和减少(50%)的响应规律。结果表明,降雨增加显著提高土壤湿度(+8.92%)而不影响土壤温度。与对照相比,降雨增加导致土壤呼吸显著提高80.5%,其土壤呼吸的温度敏感性(4.07)显著高于对照样地(2.66)。增雨处理下的土壤呼吸与土壤湿度呈负相关。降雨减少则显著降低土壤湿度(-10.25%),并对土壤呼吸有促进趋势,然而,对土壤呼吸的温度敏感性(2.64)无显著影响。减雨处理下的土壤呼吸强度与土壤湿度呈正相关。这意味着在我国亚热带—暖温带过渡区,降雨增加或减少均对土壤呼吸有不同程度的刺激作用,进而很可能减弱该区域森林生态系统土壤的固碳潜力。     

土壤线虫对气候变化的响应研究进展

全球变化对陆地生态系统功能具有重要而深远的影响。陆地生态系统地下部分具有重要的生态功能,其组成及结构对气候变化的响应将进一步减缓或加剧全球化进程。土壤线虫在各类生态系统中分布十分广泛,是地下食物网的重要组分,在维持土壤生物多样性及营养物质循环过程中发挥重要作用,其组成及结构对不同气候变化驱动因子的响应机制与模式不尽相同。增温及降水格局变化主要是通过改变线虫生境而直接影响其种群密度与结构,两者通常表现为正效应且作用效果随处理时间的延长而增强。CO2与大气氮沉降主要是通过影响地上植被,凋落物质量,土壤理化性质等间接过程影响土壤线虫。同时,不同的全球变化因子之间存在着复杂的交互作用,深入理解这些因子之间交互作用对线虫群落的影响模式与机制对于探讨未来气候变化情景下生态统生物多样性及养分循环过程具有重要的理论指导意义。     

Did soil development limit spruce (Picea abies) expansion in the Central Alps during the Holocene? Testing a palaeobotanical hypothesis with a dynamic landscape model

Aim Forest communities in the European Central Alps are highly sensitive to climatic change. Palaeobotanical studies have demonstrated that forests rapidly expanded upslope during Holocene warm intervals and contracted when temperatures fell. However, temperature alone cannot account for important changes in tree species abundance. For example, population expansion by Norway spruce (Picea abies), a dominant subalpine species, lagged suitable temperatures by about 3000 years in eastern and by 6000 years in western Switzerland. We hypothesize that spruce expansion was delayed by limited water availability in weakly developed soils and/or by drier‐than‐present climatic conditions. Location We examine the impact of reduced moisture availability on forest dynamics using a combined dynamic modelling/palaeoecological approach at two high‐elevational lakes in the Swiss Central Alps. Methods We simulate Holocene vegetation dynamics with the LandClim model in landscapes surrounding the two lakes and validate the model output by comparison with palaeobotanical reconstructions from the same sites. We evaluate the impact of shallow soils on vegetation dynamics at these sites by varying soil water‐holding capacity (i.e. bucket size) and precipitation abundance in model scenarios. Results Simulations with modern soil conditions and precipitation abundance matched reconstructed vegetation dynamics near the tree line, where temperature limits plant growth, but simulated abundant spruce during the entire Holocene. Spruce was absent only in simulations with a maximum bucket size of less than 7 cm, or when precipitation was reduced by at least 60%. In exploratory simulations of future conditions with average temperatures raised by 4 °C, the low water‐holding capacity of shallow alpine soils, not temperature, determined the upper elevational limit of spruce. Main conclusions Spruce expanded in the Central Alps only after soils developed sufficient water‐holding capacity and precipitation neared its modern abundance. Soil development will probably constrain the future response of tree species to warmer conditions (e.g. upslope migrations), as it did in the past.     

Scale‐specific processes shape plant community patterns in subtropical coastal grasslands

Processes responsible for shaping community patterns act at specific spatial scales. In this study, we aimed at disentangling the effects of climate, soil and space as drivers of variation in a coastal grassland plant community. We were specifically interested in evaluating the relative influence of those processes at broad and fine spatial scales as well as when considering species groups with good and poor long‐distance dispersal capacity. We sampled grassland vegetation at 16 sites distributed along a latitudinal gradient of more than 500 km in subtropical southern Brazil and used variation partitioning procedures to ascertain the relative influence of climatic, edaphic and spatial processes on variation in species composition at different spatial scales, considering the entire community and subsets with only species from the Asteraceae family (good long‐distance dispersal) and Poaceae (poor long‐distance dispersal). Climatic filters were the most responsible for shaping grassland community composition at the broad scale, while edaphic filters showed higher importance at the fine scale. When not considering the influence of spatial scale, we observed higher influence of climate structured in space. Composition patterns of species with poor long‐distance dispersal (Poaceae) were more closely related to spatial variables than those of species with effective dispersal (Asteraceae). Our results stressed the importance of addressing different spatial scales to rightly ascertain the magnitude that different drivers exert on plant community assembly. Dividing the community into groups with different dispersal abilities proved useful for a more detailed understanding of the community assembly processes.     

模拟降雨量变化对黄河三角洲湿地植物群落特征的影响

气候变化背景下,降雨变化能够深刻影响河口湿地土壤水盐条件,而土壤水盐条件是影响植物群落特征的关键环境因子。本研究以黄河三角洲湿地植物群落为对象,依托野外降雨控制试验平台(减雨60%、减雨40%、自然对照、增雨40%、增雨60%),探讨了经过6年降雨处理后湿地植物群落特征对降雨量变化的响应及机制。结果表明: 随降雨量增加,土壤电导率显著降低,土壤湿度显著增大。降雨量变化影响了植物群落物种组成,增雨处理降低了碱蓬和盐地碱蓬的优势地位,提高了荻和白茅的优势地位。随降雨量增加,植物群落Shannon指数和Margalef丰富度指数显著提高。与对照相比,增减雨处理均降低了群落频度、多度和盖度,增雨60%处理群落频度显著降低54.9%,减雨60%、减雨40%、增雨40%、增雨60%处理群落多度分别显著降低38.9%、33.8%、35.8%和45.7%。随降雨量增加,植物群落地上生物量显著增加,但可能受淹水胁迫的影响,增雨60%处理地上生物量显著低于增雨40%。Margalef丰富度指数与地上生物量呈显著正相关;地上生物量、Shannon指数、Margalef丰富度指数、Simpson多样性指数均与土壤电导率呈显著负相关;地上生物量与土壤湿度呈显著正相关。降雨量变化通过改变黄河三角洲湿地土壤水盐条件显著影响了植物群落生长特征、物种组成和多样性。     

Maritime climate influence on chaparral composition and diversity in the coast range of central California

We investigated the hypothesis that maritime climatic factors associated with summer fog and low cloud stratus (summer marine layer) help explain the compositional diversity of chaparral in the coast range of central California. We randomly sampled chaparral species composition in 0.1‐hectare plots along a coast‐to‐interior gradient. For each plot, climatic variables were estimated and soil samples were analyzed. We used Cluster Analysis and Principle Components Analysis to objectively categorize plots into climate zone groups. Climate variables, vegetation composition and various diversity measures were compared across climate zone groups using ANOVA and nonmetric multidimensional scaling. Differences in climatic variables that relate to summer moisture availability and winter freeze events explained the majority of variance in measured conditions and coincided with three chaparral assemblages: maritime (lowland coast where the summer marine layer was strongest), transition (upland coast with mild summer marine layer influence and greater winter precipitation), and interior sites that generally lacked late summer water availability from either source. Species turnover (β‐diversity) was higher among maritime and transition sites than interior sites. Coastal chaparral differs from interior chaparral in having a higher obligate seeder to facultative seeder (resprouter) ratio and by being dominated by various Arctostaphylos species as opposed to the interior dominant, Adenostoma fasciculatum. The maritime climate influence along the California central coast is associated with patterns of woody plant composition and β‐diversity among sites. Summer fog in coastal lowlands and higher winter precipitation in coastal uplands combine to lower late dry season water deficit in coastal chaparral and contribute to longer fire return intervals that are associated with obligate seeders and more local endemism. Soil nutrients are comparatively less important in explaining plant community composition, but heterogeneous azonal soils contribute to local endemism and promote isolated chaparral patches within the dominant forest vegetation along the coast.     

Remotely sensed vegetation phenology and productivity along a climatic gradient: on the value of incorporating the dimension of woody plant cover

Aim Woody plants affect vegetation–environment interactions by modifying microclimate, soil moisture dynamics and carbon cycling. In examining broad‐scale patterns in terrestrial vegetation dynamics, explicit consideration of variation in the amount of woody plant cover could provide additional explanatory power that might not be available when only considering landscape‐scale climate patterns or specific vegetation assemblages. Here we evaluate the interactive influence of woody plant cover on remotely sensed vegetation dynamics across a climatic gradient along a sky island. Location The Santa Rita Mountains, Arizona, USA. Methods Using a satellite‐measured normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from 2000 to 2008, we conducted time‐series and regression analyses to explain the variation in functional attributes of vegetation (productivity, seasonality and phenology) related to: (1) vegetation community, (2) elevation as a proxy for climate, and (3) woody plant cover, given the effects of the other environmental variables, as an additional ecological dimension that reflects potential vegetation–environment feedbacks at the local scale. Results NDVI metrics were well explained by interactions among elevation, vegetation community and woody plant cover. After accounting for elevation and vegetation community, woody plant cover explained up to 67% of variation in NDVI metrics and, notably, clarified elevation‐ and community‐specific patterns of vegetation dynamics across the gradient. Main conclusions In addition to the environmental factors usually considered – climate, reflecting resources and constraints, and vegetation community, reflecting species composition and relative dominance – woody plant cover, a broad‐scale proxy of many vegetation–environment interactions, represents an ecological dimension that provides additional process‐related understanding of landscape‐scale patterns of vegetation function.     

Plant functional types and climate in a southern African savanna

Abstract. A system of easily defined plant functional types for a dry savanna is presented and related to climate data. To predict possible changes of vegetation in response to climate change, a system of functional attributes is developed. The attributes are based on both structural and functional characteristics and are chosen to be related to climatic conditions. plant functional types are defined as assemblages of plant species having similar combinations of plant functional attributes. Direct and indirect gradient analyses of a test data set show that the plant functional types as well as the vegetation described from them are strongly associated with total annual precipitation, precipitation of the wettest month and a moisture index (all related to soil moisture) and with temperature of the coldest month.     

Interactive effects between plant functional types and soil factors on tundra species diversity and community composition

Plant communities are coupled with abiotic factors, as species diversity and community composition both respond to and influence climate and soil characteristics. Interactions between vegetation and abiotic factors depend on plant functional types (PFT) as different growth forms will have differential responses to and effects on site characteristics. However, despite the importance of different PFT for community assembly and ecosystem functioning, research has mainly focused on vascular plants. Here, we established a set of observational plots in two contrasting habitats in northeastern Siberia in order to assess the relationship between species diversity and community composition with soil variables, as well as the relationship between vegetation cover and species diversity for two PFT (nonvascular and vascular). We found that nonvascular species diversity decreased with soil acidity and moisture and, to a lesser extent, with soil temperature and active layer thickness. In contrast, no such correlation was found for vascular species diversity. Differences in community composition were found mainly along soil acidity and moisture gradients. However, the proportion of variation in composition explained by the measured soil variables was much lower for nonvascular than for vascular species when considering the PFT separately. We also found different relationships between vegetation cover and species diversity according the PFT and habitat. In support of niche differentiation theory, species diversity and community composition were related to edaphic factors. The distinct relationships found for nonvascular and vascular species suggest the importance of considering multiple PFT when assessing species diversity and composition and their interaction with edaphic factors. Synthesis: Identifying vegetation responses to edaphic factors is a first step toward a better understanding of vegetation–soil feedbacks under climate change. Our results suggest that incorporating differential responses of PFT is important for predicting vegetation shifts, primary productivity, and in turn, ecosystem functioning in a changing climate.     

Climate and vegetation hierarchically structure patterns of songbird distribution in the Canadian boreal region

Environmental factors controlling the distribution and abundance of boreal avifauna are not fully understood, limiting our ability to predict the consequences of a changing climate and industrial development activities underway. We used a compilation of avian point‐count data, collected over 1990–2008 from nearly 36 000 locations, to model the abundance of individual forest songbird species within the Canadian boreal forest. We evaluated 30 vegetation and 101 climatic variables, representing most of the widely‐used dimensions of climate space, along with less usual measures of inter‐annual variability. Regression tree models allowed us to calculate the relative importance of climate and vegetation variable classes according to avian migration strategy without the need for a priori variable selection or dimension reduction. We tested for hierarchical habitat selection by formulating hypotheses on the locations of variables within the model tree structures. Climate variables explained the majority (77%) of deviance explained over 98 species modelled. As may be expected at high latitudes, we found energy availability (temperature, 65%) to be more important than moisture availability (precipitation, 12%). The contributions of inter‐ and intra‐annual climate variability (28%) were about half that of mean conditions. The relatively large contribution of remotely‐sensed vegetation metrics (23%) highlighted the importance of local vegetation heterogeneity controlled by non‐climatic factors. The two most important vegetation variables were landcover type and April leaf area index. When selected, these generally occurred in a model's right subtree, consistent with predictions from hierarchical habitat selection theory. When occupying the root node, landcover effectively delineated the historical forest‐prairie ecotone, reflecting the current disequilibrium between climate and vegetation due to human land use. Our findings suggest a large potential for avian distributional shifts in response to climate change, but also demonstrate the importance of finer scale vegetation heterogeneity in the spatial distribution of boreal birds.     

Multiple environmental changes drive forest floor vegetation in a temperate mountain forest

Human‐induced changes of the environment and their possible impacts on temperate forest understory plant communities have been examined in many studies. However, the relative contribution of individual environmental factors to these changes in the herb layer is still unclear. In this study, we used vegetation survey data covering a time period of 21 years and collected from 143 permanent plots in the Northern Limestone Alps, Austria. Data on soil chemistry (49 plots), light condition (51 plots), soil temperature and moisture (four and six plots), disturbance (all plots), climate (one station in a clearing area), and airborne sulfur (S) and nitrogen (N) deposition (two forest stands) were available for analyses. We used these data together with plot mean Ellenberg indicator values in a path analysis to attribute their relative contributions to observed vegetation changes. Our analysis reveals a strong directional shift of the forest understory plant community. We found strong evidence for a recovery of the ground‐layer vegetation from acidification as response to decreased S deposition. We did not observe a community response to atmospheric N deposition, but we found a response to altered climatic conditions (thermophilization and drying). The path analysis revealed that changes in the light regime, which were related to small‐scale disturbances, had most influence on herb layer community shifts. Thermophilization and drying were identified as drivers of understory community changes independent of disturbance events.     

Water as a resource,stress and disturbance shaping tundra vegetation

Water is crucial for plant productivity and survival as a fundamental resource, but water conditions can also cause physiological stress and mechanical disturbance to vegetation. However, these different influences of water on vegetation patterns have not been evaluated simultaneously. Here, we demonstrate the importance of three water aspects (spatial and temporal variation of soil moisture and fluvial disturbance) for three ecologically and evolutionary distinct taxonomical groups (vascular plants, mosses and lichens) in Fennoscandian mountain tundra. Fine‐scale plant occurrence data for 271 species were collected from 378 × 1 m² plots sampled over broad environmental gradients (water, temperature, radiation, soil pH, cryogenic processes and the dominant allelopathic plant species). While controlling all other key environmental variables, water in its different aspects proved to be a crucial environmental driver, acting on individual species and on community characteristics. The inclusion of the water variables significantly improved our models. In this high‐latitude system, the importance of spatial variability of water exceeds the importance of temperature for the fine‐scale distribution of species from the three taxonomical groups. We found differing responses to the three water variables between and within the taxonomical groups. Water as a resource was the most important water‐related variable in species distribution models across all taxonomical groups. Both water resource and disturbance were strongly related to vascular plant species richness, whereas for moss species richness, water resources had the highest influence. For lichen species richness, water disturbance was the most influential water‐related variable. These findings demonstrate that water variables are not only independent properties of tundra hydrology, but also that water is truly a multifaceted driver of vegetation patterns at high‐latitudes.     

Darkling beetle communities in two geologically contrasting biotopes: testing biodiversity patterns by microsite comparisons

Studies at a microsite scale, where most of the environmental variation can be reduced to a few factors, may help to identify the actual contribution of a particular environmental factor to community organization. Climate is known to be an important factor for regulating animal diversity. However, for soil‐dwelling animals, the role of soil characteristics can hardly be extracted out because of the inter‐relationships between climate and soil. The community structure of soil‐dwelling darkling beetles inhabiting the two geologically highly contrasting west‐ and east‐facing slopes (WFS and EFS, respectively) of the Mediterranean island of Santorini (Greece) was investigated in a case study aiming to assess the separate influence of soil characteristics and climate. Eroded pumice soils of EFS allowed a higher abundance of darkling beetle individuals and biomass, hosting more productive vegetation and being more penetrable to fossorial larvae. Moreover, the two slopes differed significantly with respect to the abundance of certain species that are characterized by a peculiar morphological adaptation to different soil characteristics. Thus, local geological sharp divergence led to darkling beetle interslope community differences as a result of local selection towards certain species. However, the two communities are similar in terms of darkling beetle diversity, evenness, and species niche‐breadth. This demonstrates that sites sharing the same climatic conditions tend to have similarly structured darkling beetle communities, even if there are marked differences in soil characteristics that promote differences in species composition, thus suggesting that climate is the major factor for regulating species diversity. © 2009 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009, 98 , 787–793.     

Climate change‐induced vegetation shifts lead to more ecological droughts despite projected rainfall increases in many global temperate drylands

Drylands occur worldwide and are particularly vulnerable to climate change because dryland ecosystems depend directly on soil water availability that may become increasingly limited as temperatures rise. Climate change will both directly impact soil water availability and change plant biomass, with resulting indirect feedbacks on soil moisture. Thus, the net impact of direct and indirect climate change effects on soil moisture requires better understanding. We used the ecohydrological simulation model SOILWAT at sites from temperate dryland ecosystems around the globe to disentangle the contributions of direct climate change effects and of additional indirect, climate change‐induced changes in vegetation on soil water availability. We simulated current and future climate conditions projected by 16 GCMs under RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 for the end of the century. We determined shifts in water availability due to climate change alone and due to combined changes of climate and the growth form and biomass of vegetation. Vegetation change will mostly exacerbate low soil water availability in regions already expected to suffer from negative direct impacts of climate change (with the two RCP scenarios giving us qualitatively similar effects). By contrast, in regions that will likely experience increased water availability due to climate change alone, vegetation changes will counteract these increases due to increased water losses by interception. In only a small minority of locations, climate change‐induced vegetation changes may lead to a net increase in water availability. These results suggest that changes in vegetation in response to climate change may exacerbate drought conditions and may dampen the effects of increased precipitation, that is, leading to more ecological droughts despite higher precipitation in some regions. Our results underscore the value of considering indirect effects of climate change on vegetation when assessing future soil moisture conditions in water‐limited ecosystems.     

Climatic water deficit,tree species ranges,and climate change in Yosemite National Park

Aim (1) To calculate annual potential evapotranspiration (PET), actual evapotranspiration (AET) and climatic water deficit (Deficit) with high spatial resolution; (2) to describe distributions for 17 tree species over a 2300‐m elevation gradient in a 3000‐km² landscape relative to AET and Deficit; (3) to examine changes in AET and Deficit between past (c. 1700), present (1971–2000) and future (2020–49) climatological means derived from proxies, observations and projections; and (4) to infer how the magnitude of changing Deficit may contribute to changes in forest structure and composition. Location Yosemite National Park, California, USA. Methods We calculated the water balance within Yosemite National Park using a modified Thornthwaite‐type method and correlated AET and Deficit with tree species distribution. We used input data sets with different spatial resolutions parameterized for variation in latitude, precipitation, temperature, soil water‐holding capacity, slope and aspect. We used climate proxies and climate projections to model AET and Deficit for past and future climate. We compared the modelled future water balance in Yosemite with current species water‐balance ranges in North America. Results We calculated species climatic envelopes over broad ranges of environmental gradients – a range of 310 mm for soil water‐holding capacity, 48.3°C for mean monthly temperature (January minima to July maxima), and 918 mm yr^?1 for annual precipitation. Tree species means were differentiated by AET and Deficit, and at higher levels of Deficit, species means were increasingly differentiated. Modelled Deficit for all species increased by a mean of 5% between past (c. 1700) and present (1971–2000). Projected increases in Deficit between present and future (2020–49) were 23% across all plots. Main conclusions Modelled changes in Deficit between past, present and future climate scenarios suggest that recent past changes in forest structure and composition may accelerate in the future, with species responding individualistically to further declines in water availability. Declining water availability may disproportionately affect Pinus monticola and Tsuga mertensiana. Fine‐scale heterogeneity in soil water‐holding capacity, aspect and slope implies that plant water balance may vary considerably within the grid cells of kilometre‐scale climate models. Sub‐grid‐cell soil and topographical data can partially compensate for the lack of spatial heterogeneity in gridded climate data, potentially improving vegetation‐change projections in mountainous landscapes with heterogeneous topography.     

土壤微生物群落对枯落物输入的响应

枯落物分解在陆地生态系统物质循环能量流动中起着关键性作用,明确枯落物输入对土壤微生物群落的影响有助于理解土壤微生物生物多样性和陆地生态系统功能的相互关系。本文采用整合分析方法,以中国为研究区域,以不添加枯落物为对照组,探究土壤微生物(真菌、细菌、放线菌)及微生物生物量碳、生物量氮对枯落物输入的响应。结果表明:与不添加枯落物相比,添加枯落物后土壤微生物生物量碳、生物量氮分别显著增加3.9%和4.4%;土壤真菌PLFA、细菌PLFA及总微生物PLFA分别增加4.0%、3.1%和2.4%。枯落物输入对土壤微生物的影响受到气候条件、年降水量、植被类型及土壤酸碱度等因素的显著影响;不同气候类型下,土壤微生物对枯落物输入的响应呈现出亚热带季风气候区>温带季风气候区>温带大陆气候区的趋势,以及随着年降水量的增加呈现出先升高后降低的趋势;不同植被类型下,土壤微生物对枯落物输入的响应呈现出阔叶林>草地≈混交林>针叶林的趋势。     

Climate severity and land‐cover transformation determine plant community attributes in Colombian dry forests

Tropical dry forests (TDF) are known to be resource‐limited due to a marked seasonality in precipitation. However, TDF are also shaped by factors such as solar radiation, wind speed, soil fertility, and land‐cover transformation. Together, these factors may determine different gradients of environmental harshness that are likely to drive changes in plant community attributes. Here, we evaluated the effects of environmental harshness on plant community diversity and structure of Colombian TDF, based on floristic and environmental data from 15 1‐ha permanent plots. We also analyzed these effects on legumes species only (including both deciduous and non‐deciduous species), deciduous species only (including both legumes and non‐legumes species), and on the whole community excluding either legumes or deciduous separately. Drier conditions and higher land‐cover transformation had the strongest negative effects on species diversity, basal area (BA), and canopy height. Soil fertility, on the contrary, did not have a significant effect on any of the evaluated response variables. Interestingly, legumes maintained their diversity and BA along the climatic gradient, while deciduous species were negatively affected by drier conditions and by an increase in secondary vegetation at the landscape level. Our results suggest that although TDF are limited by water availability, land‐cover transformation strongly increases environmental harshness. Yet, both legumes and deciduous species were differentially impacted by climatic and land transformation variables. Thus, to better understand TDF plant community attributes, it is necessary to consider these gradients and to disentangle their effects on different plant functional groups. Abstract in Spanish is available with online material.     

Does climate determine broad‐scale patterns of species richness? A test of the causal link by natural experiment

Aim Broad‐scale spatial patterns of species richness are very strongly correlated with climatic variables. If there is a causal link, i.e. if climate directly or indirectly determines patterns of richness, then when the climatic variables change, richness should change in the manner that spatial correlations between richness and climate would predict. The present study tests this prediction using seasonal changes in climatic variables and bird richness. Location We used a grid of equal area quadrats (37 000 km²) covering North and Central America as far south as Nicaragua. Methods Summer and winter bird distribution data were drawn from monographs and field guides. Climatic data came from published sources. We also used remotely sensed NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index — a measure of greenness). Results Bird species richness changes temporally (between summer and winter) in a manner that is close to, but statistically distinguishable from, the change one would predict from models relating the spatial variation in richness at a single time to climatic variables. If one further takes into account the seasonal changes in NDVI and within‐season variability of temperature and precipitation, then winter and summer richness follow congruent, statistically indistinguishable patterns. Main conclusions Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that climatic variables (temperature and precipitation) and vegetation cover directly or indirectly influence patterns of bird species richness.