Plant canopies promote climatic disequilibrium in Mediterranean recruit communities

Current rates of climate change are exceeding the capacity of many plant species to track climate, thus leading communities to be in disequilibrium with climatic conditions. Plant canopies can contribute to this disequilibrium by buffering macro-climatic conditions and sheltering poorly adapted spec...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Pérez-Navarro, María A., Lloret, Francisco, Molina-Venegas, Rafael, Alcántara, Julio M., Verdú, Miguel
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2024
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/363221
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/363221
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Climate change
Climatic bonus
Climatic debt
Climatic disequilibrium
Climatic lag
Establishment
Facilitation
Plant community assembly
Recruit–canopy interactions
Recruitment
Descripción
Sumario:Current rates of climate change are exceeding the capacity of many plant species to track climate, thus leading communities to be in disequilibrium with climatic conditions. Plant canopies can contribute to this disequilibrium by buffering macro-climatic conditions and sheltering poorly adapted species to the oncoming climate, particularly in their recruitment stages. Here we analyse differences in climatic disequilibrium between understorey and open ground woody plant recruits in 28 localities, covering more than 100,000 m2, across an elevation range embedding temperature and aridity gradients in the southern Iberian Peninsula. This study demonstrates higher climatic disequilibrium under canopies compared with open ground, supporting that plant canopies would affect future community climatic lags by allowing the recruitment of less arid-adapted species in warm and dry conditions, but also it endorse that canopies could favour warm-adapted species in extremely cold environments as mountain tops, thus pre-adapting communities living in these habitats to climate change.