Search

Responses to climate change have often been found to lag behind the rate of warming that has occurred. In addition to dispersal limitation potentially restricting spread at leading range margins, the persistence of species in new and unsuitable conditions is thought to be responsible for apparent time‐lags.Soil seed banks can allow plant communities to temporarily buffer unsuitable environmental conditions, but their potential to slow responses to long‐term climate change is largely unknown. As local forest cover can also buffer the effects of a warming climate, it is important to understand how seed banks might interact with land cover to mediate community responses to climate change.We first related species‐level seed bank persistence and distribution‐derived climatic niches for 840 plant species. We then used a database of plant community data from grasslands, forests and intermediate successional habitats from across Europe to investigate relationships between seed banks and their corresponding herb layers in 2763 plots in the context of climate and land cover.We found that species from warmer climates and with broader distributions are more likely to have a higher seed bank persistence, resulting in seed banks that are composed of species with warmer and broader climatic distributions than their corresponding herb layers. This was consistent across our climatic extent, with larger differences (seed banks from even warmer climates relative to vegetation) found in grasslands.Synthesis. Seed banks have been shown to buffer plant communities through periods of environmental variability, and in a period of climate change might be expected to contain species reflecting past, cooler conditions. Here, we show that persistent seed banks often contain species with relatively warm climatic niches and those with wide climatic ranges. Although these patterns may not be primarily driven by species' climatic adaptations, the prominence of such species in seed banks might still facilitate climate‐driven community shifts. Additionally, seed banks may be related to ongoing trends regarding the spread of widespread generalist species into natural habitats, while cool‐associated species may be at risk from both short‐ and long‐term climatic variability and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Serious concerns exist about potentially reinforcing negative effects of climate change and land conversion on biodiversity. Here, we investigate the tandem and interacting roles of climate warming and land-use change as predictors of shifts in the regional distributions of 1701 plant species in Sweden over 60 years. We show that species associated with warmer climates have increased, while grassland specialists have declined. Our results also support the hypothesis that climate warming and vegetation densification through grazing abandonment have synergistic effects on species distribution change. Local extinctions were related to high levels of warming but were reduced by grassland retention. In contrast, colonisations occurred more often in areas experiencing high levels of both climate and land-use change. Strong temperature increases were experienced by species across their ranges, indicating time lags in expected warming-related local extinctions. Our results highlight that the conservation of threatened species relies on both reduced greenhouse gas emissions and the retention and restoration of valuable habitat. Land use change has been the dominant anthropogenic driver of plant distribution change, but climate change has also become a major factor. This analysis of long-term data shows that warming likely reinforced the impact of grassland abandonment on plant species distribution change in Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semi-natural grasslands have been severely affected by agricultural land-use change. However, the isostatic land adjustment following deglaciation in the Northern Hemisphere means that new land is continually being created in coastal areas. We modelled isostatic adjustment during the last 4000 years in a region of the Baltic coast to estimate the emergence of potential grassland habitat. We also compared the α and β diversity of existing managed and abandoned coastal meadows, and assessed their contribution to biodiversity at landscape scales. We estimated that half the 7866 km2 of emerging land had the potential to become coastal meadow habitat, which is an order of magnitude larger than the total area of all valuable semi-natural grassland in the study region today. The small area of managed coastal habitat remaining was found to have a disproportionate influence on the richness of threatened species at landscape scales, but our results also show that continued management is essential for the maintenance of grassland biodiversity. Our combination of approaches identifies uplifted coastal meadows as an additional original niche for grassland plant species, while highlighting that low-intensity disturbance through grassland management is essential for the maintenance of diversity at multiple scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dispersal is essential for species to survive the threats of habitat destruction and climate change. Combining descriptions of dispersal ability with those of landscape structure, the concept of functional connectivity has been popular for understanding and predicting species' spatial responses to environmental change., Following recent advances, the functional connectivity concept is now able to move beyond landscape structure to consider more explicitly how other external factors such as climate and resources affect species movement. We argue that these factors, in addition to a consideration of the complete dispersal process, are critical for an accurate understanding of functional connectivity for plant species in response to environmental change., We use recent advances in dispersal, landscape and molecular ecology to describe how a range of external factors can influence effective dispersal in plant species, and how the resulting functional connectivity can be assessed., Synthesis. We define plant functional connectivity as the effective dispersal of propagules or pollen among habitat patches in a landscape. Plant functional connectivity is determined by a combination of landscape structure, interactions between plant, environment and dispersal vectors, and the successful establishment of individuals. We hope that this consolidation of recent research will help focus future connectivity research and conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration, extirpation and persistence of individual populations of species are key processes determining community responses to environmental change. However, they are difficult to study over long time periods without corresponding historical and modern-day species occurrences., We used historical and present-day plant species occurrence data from two different spatial scales (resolutions) to investigate the plant community turnover during the 20th century in a Baltic Sea archipelago. Patterns of turnover were analysed in relation to plant functional traits relating to dispersal and competition/persistence, as well as biogeographical variables., Turnover was largely driven by interactions between functional traits and measures of area, connectivity and distance to mainland. However, the combinations of traits and biogeographical variables that were most important for predicting immigration and extirpation differed between data sets, and between species associated with grassland management and the entire species pool., Taller plants were more likely to persist regardless of scale and biogeography, reflecting the grazing abandonment that occurred in the study area. Interactions between dispersal traits and biogeography were related to immigrations when the entire species pool was considered. However, increased dispersal potential, a smaller island size and increasing distance to mainland combined to promote extirpations in management-associated species. A perennial life span and seed banking contributed to species persistence. At the larger spatial scale, trait-driven turnover was not mediated by the biogeographical context., We showed that it is important to consider functional traits, biogeographical variables and their interactions when analysing community turnover over time. Furthermore, we found that the understanding of how combinations of traits and biogeography predict turnover depends on the source and spatial scale of the available data, and the species pool analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Dispersal is a key process in determining the survival of plant species following habitat fragmentation and climate change, as well as driving the introduction and spread of invasive alien species in new regions. Due to its passive nature, seed dispersal is particularly complex, and the rare long-distance events relevant for plant species' responses to environmental change are a barrier to its understanding. Attempts to simplify the seed dispersal process often ignore dispersal by humans, despite the huge influence humans have over ecological systems throughout the world. In this Biodiversity Viewpoint, we describe how the movement patterns of humans and human-mediated dispersal vectors can be useful for understanding potential patterns of dispersal at multiple spatial scales. Humans and their associated dispersal vectors such as livestock and motor vehicles can disperse huge numbers of seeds of many plant species very long distances. Their relationships with the physical environment affect their movement, and therefore the movement of the seeds which they can potentially disperse. Therefore, we believe that a geographical approach can be useful at a time where understanding and managing pathways of dispersal are of direct relevance to the challenges faced by plant species and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]