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Contributed Talk

Session: : Biodiversity: Effects Of Global Change 4

COS 74-4 - Long term alpine plant responses to global changes depend on their functional traits

Tuesday, August 8, 2023
10:45 AM – 11:00 AM PDT
Location: B114
Abstract: Forecasting population trajectories into the future is a critical but challenging scientific endeavor, given the large number of species affected by global changes. A trait-based framework is one potential method to make generalized predictions of winners and losers under global change. Here we leverage six long-term global change experiments at the Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research site, together with comprehensive trait data for individual species, to ask whether species responses to simulated nitrogen deposition, increased snowpack and/or warming depended on their functional traits. We find that functional traits explained some of the variation in plant responses to global change factors, and that these traits allow prediction of how these species might respond in the future. Overall, snow addition, followed by warming, resulted in the strongest trait-based responses. In most cases, plants with more acquisitive strategies (higher specific leaf area, taller, higher leaf nitrogen, lower leaf dry matter content) generally increased in abundance. However, nitrogen addition resulted in a reduction in abundance of plants with high leaf nitrogen. Similar traits also influenced the probability of establishment. Functional trait effects on abundance changes and establishment chances tended to mirror changes in community weighted means, but not always because changes in community weighted means depend on how the most abundant species respond. Together, this synthesis illustrates that we should expect that species with acquisitive strategies will likely be more successful in the alpine under future conditions. We also show how functional traits can help understand and predict how plant communities are likely to change in the future under the pressure of global changes.