TY - JOUR
T1 - Widespread but heterogeneous responses of Andean forests to climate change
AU - Fadrique, Belén
AU - Báez, Selene
AU - Duque, Álvaro
AU - Malizia, Agustina
AU - Blundo, Cecilia
AU - Carilla, Julieta
AU - Osinaga-Acosta, Oriana
AU - Malizia, Lucio
AU - Silman, Miles
AU - Farfán-Ríos, William
AU - Malhi, Yadvinder
AU - Young, Kenneth R.
AU - Cuesta C, Francisco
AU - Homeier, Jurgen
AU - Peralvo, Manuel
AU - Pinto, Esteban
AU - Jadan, Oswaldo
AU - Aguirre, Nikolay
AU - Aguirre, Zhofre
AU - Feeley, Kenneth J.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements We thank the many individuals and institutions (including the Red de Bosques Andinos, CODESAN, APECO, CONICET and RAINFOR) who are working to protect and understand Andean forests; GBIF and contributing institutions for making collection data publicly available and E. Ortíz for creating the map of plot locations. B.F. and K.J.F. were supported by the US NSF (DEB-1350125) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. M.R.S. and W.F.R. were supported by the US NSF (DEB-1754647, DEB-1258112, and EAR-1338694). J.H. was supported by DFG Grants HO3296/2 and HO3296/4. Peruvian plot monitoring was supported by the Blue Moon Fund and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Andes to Amazon Program and RAINFOR grant 1656 (coordinated by O. Phillips). A complete list of acknowledgments and funding sources can be found in the Supplementary Information.
PY - 2018/12/13
Y1 - 2018/12/13
N2 - Global warming is forcing many species to shift their distributions upward, causing consequent changes in the compositions of species that occur at specific locations. This prediction remains largely untested for tropical trees. Here we show, using a database of nearly 200 Andean forest plot inventories spread across more than 33.5° latitude (from 26.8° S to 7.1° N) and 3,000-m elevation (from 360 to 3,360 m above sea level), that tropical and subtropical tree communities are experiencing directional shifts in composition towards having greater relative abundances of species from lower, warmer elevations. Although this phenomenon of ‘thermophilization’ is widespread throughout the Andes, the rates of compositional change are not uniform across elevations. The observed heterogeneity in thermophilization rates is probably because of different warming rates and/or the presence of specialized tree communities at ecotones (that is, at the transitions between distinct habitats, such as at the timberline or at the base of the cloud forest). Understanding the factors that determine the directions and rates of compositional changes will enable us to better predict, and potentially mitigate, the effects of climate change on tropical forests.
AB - Global warming is forcing many species to shift their distributions upward, causing consequent changes in the compositions of species that occur at specific locations. This prediction remains largely untested for tropical trees. Here we show, using a database of nearly 200 Andean forest plot inventories spread across more than 33.5° latitude (from 26.8° S to 7.1° N) and 3,000-m elevation (from 360 to 3,360 m above sea level), that tropical and subtropical tree communities are experiencing directional shifts in composition towards having greater relative abundances of species from lower, warmer elevations. Although this phenomenon of ‘thermophilization’ is widespread throughout the Andes, the rates of compositional change are not uniform across elevations. The observed heterogeneity in thermophilization rates is probably because of different warming rates and/or the presence of specialized tree communities at ecotones (that is, at the transitions between distinct habitats, such as at the timberline or at the base of the cloud forest). Understanding the factors that determine the directions and rates of compositional changes will enable us to better predict, and potentially mitigate, the effects of climate change on tropical forests.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41586-018-0715-9
DO - 10.1038/s41586-018-0715-9
M3 - Article
C2 - 30429613
AN - SCOPUS:85058518118
VL - 564
SP - 207
EP - 212
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
SN - 0028-0836
IS - 7735
ER -