Contrasting altitudinal variation of alpine plant communities along the Swedish mountains

dc.contributor.authorMasviken, Johannes
dc.contributor.authorDalerum, Fredrik
dc.contributor.authorCousins, Sara A.O.
dc.date.accessioned2020-10-08T07:09:01Z
dc.date.available2020-10-08T07:09:01Z
dc.date.issued2020-06
dc.description.abstractChanges in abiotic factors along altitudinal and latitudinal gradients cause powerful environmental gradients. The topography of alpine areas generates environmental gradients over short distances, and alpine areas are expected to experience greater temperature increase compared to the global average. In this study, we investigate alpha, beta, and gamma diversity, as well as community structure, of vascular plant communities along altitudinal gradients at three latitudes in the Swedish mountains. Species richness and evenness decreased with altitude, but the patterns within the altitudinal gradient varied between sites, including a sudden decrease at high altitude, a monotonic decrease, and a unimodal pattern. However, we did not observe a decline in beta diversity with altitude at all sites, and plant communities at all sites were spatially nested according to some other factors than altitude, such as the availability of water or microtopographic position. Moreover, the observed diversity patterns did not follow the latitudinal gradient. We observed a spatial modularity according to altitude, which was consistent across sites. Our results suggest strong influences of site-specific factors on plant community composition and that such factors partly may override effects from altitudinal and latitudinal environmental variation. Spatial variation of the observed vascular plant communities appears to have been caused by a combination of processes at multiple spatial scales.en_ZA
dc.description.departmentMammal Research Instituteen_ZA
dc.description.departmentZoology and Entomologyen_ZA
dc.description.librarianpm2020en_ZA
dc.description.sponsorshipFormas and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.en_ZA
dc.description.urihttp://www.ecolevol.orgen_ZA
dc.identifier.citationMåsviken, J., Dalerum, F. & Cousins, S.A.O. 2020, 'Contrasting altitudinal variation of alpine plant communities along the Swedish mountains', Ecology and Evolution, vol. 10, no. 11, pp. 4838-4853.en_ZA
dc.identifier.issn2045-7758 (online)
dc.identifier.other10.1002/ece3.6237
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/76392
dc.language.isoenen_ZA
dc.publisherWiley Open Accessen_ZA
dc.rights© 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.en_ZA
dc.subjectAltitudinal gradienten_ZA
dc.subjectCommunity structureen_ZA
dc.subjectElevationen_ZA
dc.subjectLatitudeen_ZA
dc.subjectMountain ecologyen_ZA
dc.subjectTaxonomic diversityen_ZA
dc.titleContrasting altitudinal variation of alpine plant communities along the Swedish mountainsen_ZA
dc.typeArticleen_ZA

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