@article{DeFrenneRodriguezSanchezCoomesetal.2013, author = {De Frenne, Pieter and Rodriguez-Sanchez, Francisco and Coomes, David Anthony and B{\"a}ten, Lander and Verstr{\"a}ten, Gorik and Vellend, Mark and Bernhardt-R{\"o}mermann, Markus and Brown, Carissa D. and Brunet, J{\"o}rg and Cornelis, Johnny and Decocq, Guillaume M. and Dierschke, Hartmut and Eriksson, Ove and Gilliam, Frank S. and Hedl, Radim and Heinken, Thilo and Hermy, Martin and Hommel, Patrick and Jenkins, Michael A. and Kelly, Daniel L. and Kirby, Keith J. and Mitchell, Fraser J. G. and Naaf, Tobias and Newman, Miles and Peterken, George and Petrik, Petr and Schultz, Jan and Sonnier, Gregory and Van Calster, Hans and Waller, Donald M. and Walther, Gian-Reto and White, Peter S. and Woods, Kerry D. and Wulf, Monika and Graae, Bente Jessen and Verheyen, Kris}, title = {Microclimate moderates plant responses to macroclimate warming}, series = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, volume = {110}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, number = {46}, publisher = {National Acad. of Sciences}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0027-8424}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.1311190110}, pages = {18561 -- 18565}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Recent global warming is acting across marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems to favor species adapted to warmer conditions and/or reduce the abundance of cold-adapted organisms (i.e., "thermophilization" of communities). Lack of community responses to increased temperature, however, has also been reported for several taxa and regions, suggesting that "climatic lags" may be frequent. Here we show that microclimatic effects brought about by forest canopy closure can buffer biotic responses to macroclimate warming, thus explaining an apparent climatic lag. Using data from 1,409 vegetation plots in European and North American temperate forests, each surveyed at least twice over an interval of 12-67 y, we document significant thermophilization of ground-layer plant communities. These changes reflect concurrent declines in species adapted to cooler conditions and increases in species adapted to warmer conditions. However, thermophilization, particularly the increase of warm-adapted species, is attenuated in forests whose canopies have become denser, probably reflecting cooler growing-season ground temperatures via increased shading. As standing stocks of trees have increased in many temperate forests in recent decades, local microclimatic effects may commonly be moderating the impacts of macroclimate warming on forest understories. Conversely, increases in harvesting woody biomass-e.g., for bioenergy-may open forest canopies and accelerate thermophilization of temperate forest biodiversity.}, language = {en} } @article{BernhardtRoemermannBaetenCravenetal.2015, author = {Bernhardt-R{\"o}mermann, Markus and Baeten, Lander and Craven, Dylan and De Frenne, Pieter and Hedl, Radim and Lenoir, Jonathan and Bert, Didier and Brunet, Jorg and Chudomelova, Marketa and Decocq, Guillaume and Dierschke, Hartmut and Dirnboeck, Thomas and D{\"o}rfler, Inken and Heinken, Thilo and Hermy, Martin and Hommel, Patrick and Jaroszewicz, Bogdan and Keczynski, Andrzej and Kelly, Daniel L. and Kirby, Keith J. and Kopecky, Martin and Macek, Martin and Malis, Frantisek and Mirtl, Michael and Mitchell, Fraser J. G. and Naaf, Tobias and Newman, Miles and Peterken, George and Petrik, Petr and Schmidt, Wolfgang and Standovar, Tibor and Toth, Zoltan and Van Calster, Hans and Verstraeten, Gorik and Vladovic, Jozef and Vild, Ondrej and Wulf, Monika and Verheyen, Kris}, title = {Drivers of temporal changes in temperate forest plant diversity vary across spatial scales}, series = {Global change biology}, volume = {21}, journal = {Global change biology}, number = {10}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {1354-1013}, doi = {10.1111/gcb.12993}, pages = {3726 -- 3737}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Global biodiversity is affected by numerous environmental drivers. Yet, the extent to which global environmental changes contribute to changes in local diversity is poorly understood. We investigated biodiversity changes in a meta-analysis of 39 resurvey studies in European temperate forests (3988 vegetation records in total, 17-75years between the two surveys) by assessing the importance of (i) coarse-resolution (i.e., among sites) vs. fine-resolution (i.e., within sites) environmental differences and (ii) changing environmental conditions between surveys. Our results clarify the mechanisms underlying the direction and magnitude of local-scale biodiversity changes. While not detecting any net local diversity loss, we observed considerable among-site variation, partly explained by temporal changes in light availability (a local driver) and density of large herbivores (a regional driver). Furthermore, strong evidence was found that presurvey levels of nitrogen deposition determined subsequent diversity changes. We conclude that models forecasting future biodiversity changes should consider coarse-resolution environmental changes, account for differences in baseline environmental conditions and for local changes in fine-resolution environmental conditions.}, language = {en} }