Experimental evidence of reduced diversity of seedlings due to climate modification in a Mediterranean‐type community

By F. Lloret, Josep Peñuelas, M. Estiarte. 2004

220 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We are still lacking in experimental evidence of the effects of climate change on the richness of plant species under field conditions. We report a decrease in the species richness of recruited seedlings in a Mediterranean shrubland in experimentally induced drought and warming over 4 consecutive years. Drought decreased the number of emerging seedlings and their respective species richness. Warming also decreased seedling species richness, but it did not affect the number of emerging seedlings. Species that produce fewer recruits are more likely to disappear in drier or warmer scenarios. However, when the effect of induced climate treatment was greatest, the more abundant species in control stands were not necessarily the ones least affected by treatment; in other words, species‐idiosyncratic responses may occur. These results show that demographic processes are sensitive to minor climate changes, with probable consequences on the diversity and structure of the future plant communities.

Subfields: Ecological Modeling, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0d811578fa0c365da563760a81d2e0dd08467457

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Citations in the corpus

Plant guilds drive biomass response to global warming and water availability in subalpine grassland (2006, background): “In Mediterranean ecosystems, water is considered to be a key factor limiting plant growth (Roy, Garnier & Jackson 1987), being a critical resource for plant survival ( Lloret, Penuelas & Estiarte 2004 ) and competition (Vila & Sardans 1999).”
Climate change and plant regeneration from seed (2011, background): “…shrubland, imposed drought and warming decreased species richness of seedlings but r 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Global Change Biology, 17, 2145–2161 not in proportion to their initial abundance, suggesting that species’ responses to climate change may be idiosyncratic (Lloret et al., 2004).”
Response of plant species richness and primary productivity in shrublands along a north–south gradient in Europe to seven years of experimental warming and drought: reductions in primary productivity in the heat and drought year of 2003 (2007, background): “…responses and the reduced number of recruited seedlings in warming and, above all, in drought plots found at some sites in a previous study (Lloret et al., 2004) would, thus tend to lead to decreased species richness, especially at those sites still recovering their species-richness after…”
Simulated climate change provokes rapid genetic change in the Mediterranean shrub Fumana thymifolia (2008, methodology): “Assessment of seedling establishment in response to experimental climate manipulation has shown that demographic processes are sensitive to even minor climate changes, leading to changes in the presence and abundance of species within plant communities (Lloret et al., 2004).”
Impacts of Global Change on Mediterranean Forests and Their Services (2017, background): “Observational and experimental studies that have investigated the effects of drought and aridity on Mediterranean plant communities have detected some degree of decrease in plant-community biomass and species diversity [107,235,236], including lower seedling survival and diversity of seedling recrui”
Germination, survival, and growth of grass and forb seedlings: Effects of soil moisture variability (2009, background): “Thus, conditions that may favor germination may not favor continued growth and survival of seedlings or later stages (Lloret et al., 2004).”
A seeding experiment for testing tree-community recruitment under variable environments: Implications for forest regeneration and conservation in Mediterranean habitats (2009, result): “Our study provides the first experimental results demonstrating that boreo-alpine species are more constrained in seedling recruitment than are the Mediterranean or Sub-Mediterranean ones, with important implications for the conservation of species composition under a scenario of global change (Llor”
Impact of climate change on plant phenology in Mediterranean ecosystems (2010, background): “Differential responses to climate among plant species may alter community composition by disrupting interactions and survival under a climate change scenario (Fitter & Fitter, 2002; Lloret et al., 2004; Sherry et al., 2007; Willis et al., 2008).”
Plant community changes induced by experimental climate change: Seedling and adult species composition (2009, background): “Adult mortality probably emerges over the course of longer periods, due to the accumulation of drought effects or after drier conditions surpass survival thresholds (Peñuelas et al., 2001; Lloret et al., 2004c).”