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European Mountain Plant Population Shows Delayed Response to Climate Change

09.05.2012

Plant species are expected to respond to a warming climate by moving their ranges pole-wards or up-wards in mountains. A European team of ecologists led by Stefan Dullinger from the Department of Conservation Biology, Vegetation and Landscape Ecology of the University of Vienna presents a new modelling tool to predict migration of mountain plants which explicitly takes population dynamic processes into account. In their study, published in "Nature Climate Change", the team uses a new modelling approach to simulate how 150 high mountain plant species will migrate from their current distribution in the Alps across this mountain range in response to climate trends. The results indicate that by the end of the 21st century the Alpine high mountain flora will lose on average 44 to 50 percent of its current distribution area, a fairly moderate forecast as compared to predictions achieved from more traditional modelling techniques. However, the researchers found plants endemic to the European Alps, that is those which do not occur anywhere else, to be particularly sensitive to climate impacts. Up to 75 percent of these species might face a reduction of their ranges by more than 80 percent of their current distribution.

Photo (c) Vilseskogen / Flickr