Data from: Global warming will affect the maximum potential abundance of boreal plant species
Forecasting the impact of future global warming on biodiversity requires understanding how temperature limits the distribution of species. Here we rely on Liebig’s Law of Minimum to estimate the effect of temperature on the maximum potential abundance that a species can attain at a certain location....
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Zusammenfassung: | Forecasting the impact of future global warming on biodiversity requires
understanding how temperature limits the distribution of species. Here we
rely on Liebig’s Law of Minimum to estimate the effect of temperature on
the maximum potential abundance that a species can attain at a certain
location. We develop 95%-quantile regressions to model the influence of
effective temperature sum on the maximum potential abundance of 25 common
understory plant species of Finland, along 868 nationwide plots sampled in
1985. Fifteen of these species showed a significant response to
temperature sum that was consistent in temperature-only models and in
all-predictors models, which also included cumulative precipitation, soil
texture, soil fertility, tree species and stand maturity as predictors.
For species with significant and consistent responses to temperature, we
forecasted potential shifts in abundance for the period 2041–2070 under
the IPCC A1B emission scenario using temperature-only models. We predict
major potential changes in abundance and average northward distribution
shifts of 6–8 km yr−1. Our results emphasize inter-specific differences in
the impact of global warming on the understory layer of boreal forests.
Species in all functional groups from dwarf shrubs, herbs and grasses to
bryophytes and lichens showed significant responses to temperature, while
temperature did not limit the abundance of 10 species. We discuss the
interest of modelling the ‘maximum potential abundance’ to deal with the
uncertainty in the predictions of realized abundances associated to the
effect of environmental factors not accounted for and to dispersal
limitations of species, among others. We believe this concept has a
promising and unexplored potential to forecast the impact of specific
drivers of global change under future scenarios. |
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DOI: | 10.5061/dryad.vq83bk3pm |