Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Aug 3;12(1):13352.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-17682-2.

Responses of alpine summit vegetation under climate change in the transition zone between subtropical and tropical humid environment

Chu-Chia Kuo #  1 , Yea-Chen Liu #  1 , Yu Su  1 , Ho-Yih Liu  2 , Cheng-Tao Lin  3
Affiliations

Responses of alpine summit vegetation under climate change in the transition zone between subtropical and tropical humid environment

Chu-Chia Kuo et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Climate change has caused severe impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity globally, especially to vulnerable mountain ecosystems; the summits bear the brunt of such effects. Therefore, six summits in Taiwan were monitored based on a standardized multi-summit approach. We used both statistical downscaling of climate data and vegetation cover data to calculate climate niches to assess the impacts of climate change. Two indicators, thermophilic and moist-philic, were applied to evaluate the overall response of vegetation dynamics. The results revealed that potential evapotranspiration increased significantly and led to a declining tendency in monthly water balance from 2014 to 2019. The general pattern of species richness was a decline. The difference in plant cover among the three surveys showed an inconsistent pattern, although some dominant species expanded, such as the dwarf bamboo Yushania niitakayamensis. The thermophilic indicator showed that species composition had changed so that there were more thermophilic species at the three lowest summits. The moist-philization indicator showed a decline of humid-preferred species in the latest monitoring period. Although total precipitation did not decrease, our results suggest that the variability in precipitation with increased temperature and potential evapotranspiration altered alpine vegetation composition and could endanger vulnerable species in the future.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Trends in total annual potential evapotranspiration (PE) among the target summits from 2005 to 2019, (a) the Dashueiku Mountain (DAS) region, (b) the Syue Mountain (SYU) region.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The monthly water balance anomalies in each summit during the monitoring periods from 2005 to 2019. The Dashueiku Mountain (DAS) region included SEN, YAT and SUN summits; the Syue Mountain (SYU) region included TSW, DSH and JNJ.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The species climate niche distribution of the Dashueiku Mountain (DAS) and the Syue Mountain (SYU) region, (a) temperature niche and (b) precipitation niche.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The species climate niche and species cover difference during the three surveys at each summit (summits of the Dashueiku Mountain (DAS) region: SEN, YAT and SEN; the Syue Mountain (SYU) region: TSW, DSH and JNJ), (a) from the first survey (S1) to the second (S2), (b) from the second survey (S2) to the third (S3).
Figure 5
Figure 5
The themophilization and moist-philization indicators of each summit (the Dashueiku Mountain (DAS) region: SEN, YAT and SEN; the Syue Mountain (SYU) region: TSW, DSH and JNJ) during the monitoring periods. (a) and (c) show the indicators from the first survey to the second; (b) and (d) show the indicators from the second survey to the third; the star above each summit boxplot means that the indicator value is significantly different from zero in the t-test.
Figure 6
Figure 6
The location of long-term monitoring summits in alpine environments of Taiwan. The summits of Dashueiku Mountain (DAS) region: SEN, YAT and SEN; the Syue Mountain (SYU) region: TSW, DSH and JNJ). The map was drawn by QGIS (version 3.24; URL: https://qgis.org).
Figure 7
Figure 7
The definition of each survey year and the monitoring cycles in this study.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Chen IC, Hill JK, Ohlemuller R, Roy DB, Thomas CD. Rapid range shifts of species associated with high levels of climate warming. Science. 2011;333:1024–1026. doi: 10.1126/science.1206432. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Gottfried M, et al. Continent-wide response of mountain vegetation to climate change. Nat. Clim. Change. 2012;2:111–115. doi: 10.1038/nclimate1329. - DOI
    1. Rumpf SB, et al. Range dynamics of mountain plants decrease with elevation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2018;115:201713936. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1713936115. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gigauri K, Akhalkatsi M, Abdaladze O, Nakhutsrishvili G. Alpine plant distribution and thermic vegetation indicator on GLORIA summits in the Central Greater Caucasus. Pak. J. Bot. 2016;48:1893–1902.
    1. Gritsch A, Dirnböck T, Dullinger S. Recent changes in alpine vegetation differ among plant communities. J. Veg. Sci. 2016;27:1177–1186. doi: 10.1111/jvs.12447. - DOI

Publication types