Effects of ambient climate and three warming treatments on fruit production in an alpine, subarctic meadow communityShow others and affiliations
2021 (English)In: American Journal of Botany, ISSN 0002-9122, E-ISSN 1537-2197, Vol. 108, no 3, p. 411-422Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Premise: Climate change is having major impacts on alpine and arctic regions, and inter-annual variations in temperature are likely to increase. How increased climate variability will impact plant reproduction is unclear. Methods: In a 4-year study on fruit production by an alpine plant community in northern Sweden, we applied three warming regimes: (1) a static level of warming with open-top chambers (OTC), (2) press warming, a yearly stepwise increase in warming, and (3) pulse warming, a single-year pulse event of higher warming. We analyzed the relationship between fruit production and monthly temperatures during the budding period, fruiting period, and whole fruit production period and the effect of winter and summer precipitation on fruit production. Results: Year and treatment had a significant effect on total fruit production by evergreen shrubs, Cassiope tetragona, and Dryas octopetala, with large variations between treatments and years. Year, but not treatment, had a significant effect on deciduous shrubs and graminoids, both of which increased fruit production over the 4 years, while forbs were negatively affected by the press warming, but not by year. Fruit production was influenced by ambient temperature during the previous-year budding period, current-year fruiting period, and whole fruit production period. Minimum and average temperatures were more important than maximum temperature. In general, fruit production was negatively correlated with increased precipitation. Conclusions: These results indicate that predicted increased climate variability and increased precipitation due to climate change may affect plant reproductive output and long-term community dynamics in alpine meadow communities. © 2021 The Authors. American Journal of Botany published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Botanical Society of America
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, 2021. Vol. 108, no 3, p. 411-422
Keywords [en]
climatic events, experimental warming, global warming, plant reproduction, plant reproductive success, polar region, rain fall, tundra
National Category
Ecology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-45954DOI: 10.1002/ajb2.1631ISI: 000635370100006PubMedID: 33792046Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85103423374OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hh-45954DiVA, id: diva2:1615080
Note
The authors thank the staff of Abisko Scientific Research Station for help and hospitality and Vivian Alden, Björn Alden, and Olga Khitun for assistance in the field. The authors thank the reviewers for their constructive comments that improved the paper. This work was supported by an NFR grant (B‐AA/BU08424) to U.M. and a grant by Qatar Petroleum to J.M.A. The publication of this article was funded by the Qatar National Library.
2021-11-292021-11-292021-11-30Bibliographically approved